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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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PROFIT SHARING between Employer and 
Employee : A Study in the Evolution of 
the Wages System. Third Edition. Crown 
8vo, $1.75. 

THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. Crown 
8vo, $1.00. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

Boston and New York. 

In Preparation. 
SOCIALISM AND THE AMERICAN SPIRIT. 



THE 



LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT 



BY 



NICHOLAS PAINE GILMAN 



Health of mind consists in the percept 'ion of law 

Its dignity consists in being under laiv 

Emerson 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1891 



< 



Copyright, 1891, 
By NICHOLAS PAINE GILMAN. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 



Cn tfje $iMt &rmg erf Ceacljertf 

This attempt to aid the cause of Moral Education 

in the Public Schools of America is 

dedicated with sincere esteem. 



O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule 
And sun thee in the light of happy faces, 
Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces ; 
And in thine own heart let them first keep school. 

For as old Atlas on his broad neck places 
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it, so 
Do these upbear the little world below 
Of education — Patience, Love, and Hope. 
Methinks I see them grouped in seemly show, 
The straightened arms upraised, the palms aslope, 
And robes that, touching as adown they flow, 
Distinctly blend like snow embossed in snow. 
Oh part them never ! If Hope prostrate lie, 

Love too will sink and die, 
But Love is subtle and doth proof derive 
From her own life that Hope is yet alive ; 
And bending o'er with soul-transfusing eyes, 
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, 
Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies ; 
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. 
Yet haply there will come a weary day, 

When overtasked at length, 
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way. 
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength, 
Stands the mute sister Patience, nothing loth, 
And, both supporting, does the work of both. 

Coleridge. 



PREFACE. 



The American Secular Union, a national association 
having for its object the complete separation of Church 
and State, but in no way committed to any system of 
religious belief or disbelief, in the fall of 1889 offered 
a prize of one thousand dollars "for the best essay, 
treatise or manual adapted to aid and assist teachers in 
our free public schools, and in the Girard College for 
Orphans, and other public and charitable institutions, 
professing to be unsectarian, to thoroughly instruct 
children and youth in the purest principles of morality 
without inculcating religious doctrine." 

The members of the committee chosen to examine 
the numerous MSS. submitted were : Eichard B. West- 
brook, D. D., LL. B., President of the Union, Philadel- 
phia; Felix Adler, Ph. D., of the Society for Ethical 
Culture, New York; Prof. D. G. Brinton, M. D., of the 
University of Pennsylvania ; Prof. Prances E. White, 
M. D., of the Woman's Medical College, and Miss Ida 
C. Craddock, Secretary of the Union. As, in the opin- 
ion of a majority of the committee, no one of the 
MSS. fully met all the requirements, the prize was 
equally divided between the two adjudged to be the 
best offered, entitled respectively, " Character Build- 
ing," by Edward Payson Jackson, one of the masters 
of the Boston Latin School, and " The Laws of Daily 
Conduct." 

Although the two books were written with no refer- 



VI PREFACE. 

ence to each other, they seem to be, both in manner and 
matter, each the complement of the other. The defi- 
ciencies of each are, in great measure, supplied by the 
other. While "Character Building" is analytic and 
cast in dialogue ^form. the present work is more gen- 
eral and synthetic innk style and treatment. The two 
are therefore published in a single volume, as well as 
separately, at the earnest request of the Union, and the 
authors hope that the joint book will be preferred by 
purchasers. Much of the matter in the introduction to 
" The Laws of Daily Conduct " is equally pertinent to 
" Character Building." 

The authors of both books are friends to religion, and 
they have written from a deep conviction that there is 
a great need of instruction in morals in the public 
schools. Experience, however, has amply proved the 
inexpediency of the attempt to teach ethics there on a 
religious basis. Of the success of this endeavor to place 
the study on a scientific basis others must judge. But 
in a country marked by a great diversity of creeds, the 
way of practice is surely the one way to follow. To 
teachers and parents who would not neglect the main 
matter of human life while imparting general know- 
ledge, I offer this volume, in the hope that it may be 
somewhat of an aid in moral training in the home and 
in the school. 

K P. G. 



CONTENTS. 



I 

Page 
Introduction: Morals in the Public Schools. 

Can they be Taught? 1 

Should they be Taught ? 6 

The Best Way 10 

Nature and Design of this Book .... 15 

Chapter 

I. Ldje under Law ........ 21 

LT. Obedience to Moral Law 34 

III. Self-Control 45 

IV. Truthfulness 55 

V. The Law of Justice 66 

VI. The Law of Kindness 75 

VLI. The Great Words of Morality 86 

VIII. Home 94 

IX. Work 100 

X. The Law of Honor 106 

XL Personal Habits 114 

XII. Our Country . 122 

I. Patriotism 122 

II. Political Duty 125 

Xm, Character 130 

XIV. Moral Progress 137 

XV. Life according to the Golden Rule .... 144 



INTRODUCTION. 



MORALS EST THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

This small volume has been written to aid teachers 
in public and private schools, and parents in the home, 
in the very important work of the moral education 
and training of the young. As it is intended prima- 
rily for professional teachers, it has been put into a 
form supposed to be especially suitable for their use. 
But I trust that some fathers and mothers will be glad 
to take hints, at least, from these pages. A line drawn 
between education at home and education in the school- 
room is surely somewhat artificial when the subject is 
such a matter as the right direction of the whole life. 
The distinction between the home and the school in this 
connection is not that the home has, properly, a mo- 
nopoly of moral instruction, but that the field of the 
school is the more restricted. 

There are three important questions relating to the 
teaching of morals in public schools which may well be 
answered here, before we take up the main subject of 
this book. 

Can morality be taught in these public institutions, 
supported as they are from taxes laid upon the whole 
community, without doing injustice to any portion? 
This question, in our present condition, resolves itself 
into two distinct inquiries. 1. Can ethics be taught 
in our common schools without sectarianism, but from 
a religious standpoint ? For one, I should answer this 
question without hesitation in the affirmative. It seems 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

to me possible to teach the primary truths of practical 
morals (all that it is wise in any case to attempt in 
schools open to all), grounding them on the great propo- 
sitions of natural religion in such a way as to give 
no reason for offence to any person who accepts these. 
But this task, confessedly difficult when we simply 
mark the many diversities of religious belief in our 
country, it seems inexpedient to undertake when we 
remember that a considerable number of our fellow- 
citizens, who are likewise taxpayers, declare themselves 
to be destitute of any religious belief, or even vigor- 
ously opposed to all forms of religion. A much larger 
number of persons, again, are believers, but are none, 
the less hostile to any inculcation, in the public schools, 
directly or indirectly, of any form of theology or reli- 
gion. They consider the State to be, properly, a purely 
secular institution, and they would not have it wound 
the conscience of any citizen by teaching morals from 
a religious point of view. Granting that this would be 
the unavoidable effect with some, be they few or many, 
of the attempt to give ethical instruction on the basis 
of natural religion, we are led on to the second question 
under this first head. 

2. Can morality be taught in our public schools in 
complete separation from religion and theology, from 
what may be called " the scientific standpoint " ? Can 
instruction in practical ethics be so given that no injus- 
tice shall be done to any portion of the community, re- 
ligious, unreligious, or anti-religious ? In other words, 
is there a common ground, in the duties and rights con- 
fessed by all, on which the teacher may stand and give 
tuition in morals as securely as he does in geography or 
arithmetic ? This question would probably be answered 
in the negative by the great majority of persons in our 
country. They would, it is most likely, say that while 
the teaching of morality without sectarianism is difficult, 
to teach it omitting religion entirely, even so-called 



MOBALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 3 

"natural religion/' is practically impossible. As the 
present book is an honest attempt to do precisely this 
thing, it is evident that I emphatically differ with the 
great majority on this point. 

It remains for the reader, or the user rather, of this 
volume to determine its value as an answer to the ques- 
tion whether morality can be taught from the scientific 
standpoint in our common schools. The work must 
speak for itself, but the fact that it is a manual of prac- 
tical morals, not a short treatise on ethical theories, will 
at once suggest to many that the most troublesome of 
the supposed obstacles in the way of moral education 
are left on one side. In fact, I have aimed as directly as 
possible at actual practice ; I have so far omitted ethical 
theory that it would not be strange if some should be 
uncertain whether to rank the author in this school 
of ethical theorists or in that : he may belong to none ! 
Such uncertainty would be a source of gratification to 
him, as an indication of his success in keeping to the 
ground where all schools agree. The great facts and 
the main laws of the moral life are obvious to all ma- 
ture men and women ; certainly, they are not depen- 
dent, for their clearness and their binding force, upon 
any notions as to the origin either of the universe, of 
mankind, or of the perception itself of these facts and 
laws. The facts of astronomy which affect men's daily 
life — such as the so-called rising and setting of the 
sun, the phases of the moon, and the phenomena of 
the ocean tides, for instance — are plain to every one ; 
the explanation of them given by the astronomer to the 
farmer and the sailor (whether correct or not) will not 
essentially change the arts of agriculture and navigation. 
So the common practical duties of human beings have 
long been familiar. Each new generation must learn 
them afresh, indeed, but it learns every-day morality as 
an art, not as a science. The difficulty lies in the prac- 
tice, not in the theory. Philosophers may dispute as 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

to the exact reason why a man loves, or should love, his 
mother ; but the duty of loving one's mother is not a 
question considered open to discussion in common life. 
The same may be said of the other obligations which 
make up the substance of their duty for the great mass 
of mankind, in all but exceptional times and situations. 
When, then, we have in mind as a subject for public- 
school instruction, not the science of ethics, not the 
speculations of moral philosophers, but the orderly pre- 
sentation of the common facts and laws of the moral life 
which no one in his senses disputes, we perceive how 
the religious or theological difficulty at once disappears, 
to a large degree. There is possible a theistic expla- 
nation of the moral law ; there is possible an atheistic 
explanation ; but there is a third course open here to 
the common-school teacher, — to attempt no such final 
explanation at all ! It is not necessary for him to teach 
that morality rests upon religion as its ultimate foun- 
dation ; it is just as unnecessary for him to -teach that 
religion, on the contrary, reposes upon morality as its 
basis. Let the relation of religion and morality be as 
it may be : the teacher is not called upon to decide an 
issue of this magnitude. He can teach the duties of 
ordinary life, showing their reasonableness and their in- 
terdependence, in a consecutive, orderly manner, without 
appealing to religion ; he can use the plain and usual con- 
sequences of actions, good or bad, as reasons for morality, 
without being open to a just accusation of irreligion. 
These consequences as he should teach them are ad- 
mitted by all. He has, then, a right in reason to stop 
with them, because of the practical limitations imposed 
upon him by the time at his disposal, the immaturity of 
the faculties which he is training, and, most' of all, be- 
cause of the wide difference of men's minds as to the 
final explanation. The intuitionist and the utilitarian 
agree in attaching much importance to the consequences 
of action as a test of its moral quality. So far as these 



MOBALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 5 

two keep company, the teacher, then, may safely and 
properly go along with them, not because he is, neces- 
sarily, in his own theory, an intuitionist or a utilitarian, 
but because he is on common and undisputed ground. 
The conduct of mankind is but little affected by theories 
of the origin of the moral sense ; this is in the highest 
degree true of the children in our schools. If the 
teacher will constantly bear in mind that religion is not 
morality, but an interpretation of the whole of human 
life and the universe, he will see that he is not unre- 
ligious or anti-religious in giving to moral instruction a 
practical limit, such as I have indicated, in a scientific 
presentation of practical duty — its facts, its methods, 
and its laws — fitted to the scope of the child's mind. 

Such a limitation bars out all matters of theological 
controversy. The sectarian difficulty and the religious 
difficulty in moral education disappear when we keep 
to conduct and its common laws, and stop short of theo- 
logical or philosophical explanations why right is right 
or wrong is wrong. If sectarians or religious people of 
any faith should denounce this abstinence from disputed 
matter as in itself unwise, wrong, or sinful, we must ask 
them to consider more carefully that the public schools 
are for all, and that the only ground on which they can 
stand and teach is common ground, — as much in moral- 
ity as in arithmetic or language. 1 

The first question as to the teaching of morals in 
schools — the question of its possibility, in justice to all 
kinds of religious belief and no-belief — has detained us 

1 The ancient philosophers disputed long and to little profit over 
a question which, as Dr. Jowett says, "no one would either ask or 
answer in modern times," — " Can virtue he taught ? " In the Pro- 
tagoras of Plato, Socrates maintains that it cannot he. But this " is a 
paradox of the same sort as the profession of Socrates that he knew 
nothing. Plato means to say that virtue is not brought to a man, but 
must be drawn out of him ; and that it cannot be taught by rhetor- 
ical discourse or citations from the poets." The discussion is, to us, 
pure logomachy. 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

long enough. Allowing that such instruction on ground 
common to all, believers and unbelievers, and in a sci- 
entific manner, is possible, the second inquiry arises: 
Is it desirable to give general moral education in the 
schoolroom ? The objection from sectarianism and di- 
versity of religious beliefs has been anticipated. If it 
is, in fact, possible, and even far from difficult, to teach 
morality scientifically, giving no reasonable ground of 
offence to the various sects, — any or all of them, — then 
the further question of the desirability of imparting in 
the schoolroom a knowledge of moral law may be dis- 
cussed on other grounds. 

On general principles, the common criticism of our 
public-school system, that it looks too much to purely 
intellectual results, and that it has too little influence 
upon the life of pupils after they have left school, tends 
strongly toward giving moral instruction, now much 
neglected, a more conspicuous place in the school course. 
Many of the arguments forcibly used to recommend in- 
dustrial training bear upon moral training as well. Fair- 
minded critics who are among the warmest friends of 
the common-school system find its chief defect, where 
it has been carried, as in the large cities, to its highest 
pitch of apparent excellence, in its actual overrating of 
knowledge alone. Sheer memorizing and cramming for 
examinations are generally to be condemned on purely 
intellectual grounds. The training of the mental pow- 
ers of children, which is surely a most important part 
of the teacher's duty, is very inadequate when the two 
processes just named occupy the place of real honor in 
the educational course. The lack of adaptation to the 
needs of real life in which such a partial, education 
results has long been obvious. 

One good remedy for the old narrow and injurious 
insistence upon sheer book knowledge, gotten by heart 
and recited by rote, is the industrial training which 
takes the boy or girl away from textbook and recita- 



MORALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 7 

tion for a part of the school day, and educates the hand, 
the eye, and the practical judgment in other work. It 
is a new discipline of the mind, compared with the 
usual round of study, and it complements admirably the 
intellectual training given by even the best teacher of 
book knowledge. But it is, as well, a new moral disci- 
pline in the virtues, the very essential virtues, of work. 
If the pupils are required to do their manual exercises 
in the training shop with neatness, alertness, and steady 
attention, with economy of time and material, and with 
a thorough interest in their work, the total discipline 
of mental faculties and the moral nature is in the 
highest degree helpful toward true success in after life. 
This kind of education boys and girls out of school, 
and men and women earning their living, must get from 
actual life ; a gradual transition to it from the education 
chiefly by books is, therefore, most advisable. Indus- 
trial training, to be of any worth, involves no small 
amount of moral training, given, of course, by the same 
person. The latter discipline, equally as a matter of 
course, is not to be imparted in recitations from a book ; 
it is given, as in the actual industries of men, by the 
word and the example of the skilful and energetic. 
There can hardly be any dispute as to the desirability of 
moral training in connection with this department of 
education ; no separation of industrial and moral edu- 
cation is possible. The "virtues of work/' as I call 
them further on, are indispensable to technical skill and 
to business success. 

Numerous educators, however, will dispute the advis- 
ability of giving formal instruction in morals in our 
schools as they are now conducted (without any provi- 
sion for industrial- training) ; they take this ground 
even when convinced that the difficulties arising from 
sectarianism and religion in general have been over- 
rated, and can be surmounted by the exercise of care 
and judgment. They say that the schoolroom has a 



© INTRODUCTION, 

necessary moral discipline of its own, which is enforced 
by every capable teacher ; that it is not well to go be- 
yond this ; that the number of branches of study in our 
schools is already sufficiently great; and that moral 
education is the proper function of the home and the 
church. But I quite fail to see why the moral matters 
which are continually coming up in the schoolroom, 
whether practically in the actual discipline, or theoret- 
ically as suggested in the reading-books used, should be 
thus artificially divided from the ethics of the rest of 
life. The set teaching of arithmetic and geography, 
for instance, is, indeed, the peculiar task which parents 
confide to the schools ; but the instruction which bears 
on character is not to be dismissed by the teacher, on 
his side, as a thing to be attended to entirely by the 
child's guardians at home or in the Sunday school. This 
would be taking altogether too limited and partial a 
view of moral training. Wise instruction in the art of 
right living in human society can hardly be too fre- 
quent ; the practice must always be going on, so long 
as we live here on earth, and help in making that prac- 
tice better and more successful is not likely to be too 
insistent. 

The child spends its earliest years entirely at home, 
and its parents are responsible for the moral influences 
which shape its infant character. When he is five or 
six years old, he is sent to school for some thirty hours 
a week out of the one hundred or so which are not given 
to sleep. Henceforth the responsibility of moral in- 
struction must be divided between the parent and the 
teacher ; but much the larger share continues to fall 
upon the home authorities, of course. Such obvious 
duties of the schoolroom as obedience, industry in study, 
punctuality in attendance, and ordinary politeness, even 
if thoroughly enforced, are far from exhausting the 
moral range of the life at home, with its more frequent 
and varied opportunities for the display of good or bad 



MORALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 9 

character, in word and act. But though the father and 
the mother cannot properly throw the whole burden of 
the moral training of their children upon any person or 
persons beyond the home circle, they naturally look for 
a vigorous reinforcement of their own efforts from an 
institution so expressly adapted to training as the public 
school, with its special buildings, its determined hours, 
its professional teachers, and its ample apparatus of 
instruction and discipline. 

The teacher who draws an artificial line in the child's 
life, dividing intellectual training from moral, to devote 
himself to the first and throw the entire burden of the 
second upon the home, commits not only a blunder, but 
also an offence. The child is growing as a moral being 
in school hoars as well as out of them. In them there 
are some special advantages for effective ethical teach- 
ing which the home does not possess. The teacher and 
the parent are even more natural allies in this direction 
than in the field of purely intellectual effort. Every 
public-school teacher is bound, then, I hold, to make 
the school hours a time for instruction in character, so 
far as this is compatible with the chief object of im- 
parting the elements of knowledge. But this does not 
by any means necessarily imply that we shall add a 
new branch to the course of study, which is often too 
full already of varied subjects, or that textbooks of 
virtue or moral theory shall be put into the hands of 
children in order that they may learn to define elabo- 
rately and recite by rote the rules and distinctions of a 
formal morality. On the contrary, I can imagine few 
studies more dry, repulsive, and ineffectual in reaching 
their proposed aim than such a study of morals ! In 
the highest degree it is true of instruction in this art 
of life that it should come direct from the teacher's 
lips and pure from the teacher's heart and example. I 
am not a believer in textbooks of morals for the use of 
children in public schools. But it would be a great 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

assumption to suppose that the whole great army of 
teachers, as a rule, are already entirely competent to 
give familiar talks occasionally on points of good con- 
duct, and that no assistance from a well-devised hand- 
book of practical ethics, especially intended for their 
use, could be of value. Manuals of the art of teaching, 
in general and in particular, are multiplying every year. 
It would be a curious exception if only in the compara- 
tively untried field of moral instruction the teacher were 
left to his own devices. Precisely the opposite method 
I hold to be adapted to the actual state of the case ; 
in no part of the common-school course should a good 
manual for teachers be more welcome or more profitable 
than just here. 

The present book is an earnest attempt to perform 
what seems to be the much-needed service of clearing 
the mind of the common-school teacher as to the nature 
and limits of the moral training which may advisably 
be given in the schoolroom. The younger and more 
inexperienced instructors may find here some useful 
hints as to the best way of putting things. But I shall 
leave it to the older and experienced teachers, who have 
realized the desirability of moral training, to answer 
the third question, " How shall morality be taught in 
our schools ? " largely in their own way. The science 
of education has been amply and thoroughly illustrated 
of late years in books, many and excellent, for the guid- 
ance of teachers. The fit methods to pursue in moral 
education are essentially the same as those laid down in 
these numerous manuals and treatises on intellectual 
development in the schools. There is, of course, no 
fixed and plain line between the two disciplines. Wri- 
ters on psychology and the principles of education now- 
adays devote no small part of their space to topics which 
are common to both. Their frequent remarks on the 
training of the will, on the formation of habit, on the 
influence of association, and similar subjects are of vital 



MORALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 11 

importance to the proper method of instruction in prac- 
tical ethics. From my own short experience as an edu- 
cator, but much more from observation and reflection on 
the matter, I offer to teachers the following suggestions 
for what they are worth, as to manner and method in 
moral education. 

The one principle to keep firmly in mind is to avoid 
didacticism ("preaching") as much as possible, and 
to hold fast to actual life as children already know it, 
or may easily be led to comprehend it. Concrete in- 
stances of right-doing or wrong-doing, happening in the 
schoolroom itself, or just outside, within the immediate 
knowledge of the boys and girls, afford the best starting- 
point for talks about the moral points involved. It 
will be easy to bring the children's minds, through a 
consideration of actual examples, to recognize in some 
degree the general principles involved. The same cau- 
tion needs to be urged here as in the case of other gen- 
eral notions, against haste and consequent disregard of 
the immaturity of the childish mind. But if the teacher 
will shun formality and generality, and keep mainly to 
the particular and the concrete, he will find that few sub- 
jects interest children more than these questions of right 
and wrong in common conduct. These men-and-women- 
to-be find people the most attractive matter, just as they 
will find them later in life. Man is not only the 
" proper," but also the most engaging " study of man- 
kind," large or small. Conduct is to children, who have 
not yet entered upon the great activities of business, 
art, or science, much more than " three fourths of life," 
and the lines of it on which they are beginners will 
continue unbroken through all their years. Elaborate 
casuistry, hair-splitting about imaginary situations, any- 
thing and everything in the line of pure ethical theory, 
should be utterly tabooed in the schoolroom. But with 
these precautions observed, and under the guidance 
of a teacher of well-developed moral sense, boys and 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

girls between eight and fourteen years of age (in the 
grammar schools, where moral education has its most 
fruitful field) will reason about points of ethical prac- 
tice with interest, and often with a freshness and an 
acuteness that are surprising. If this be not so, then 
these children in school differ very much from these 
same children out of school ! 

If the course of study is, anywhere, so full or crowded 
as not to allow time for the occasional talks (one or 
two a week) about conduct, which I should advise as 
the best method, then that course should be shortened 
by the omission of some branch of much less use- 
ful knowledge sure to be found in it. I would avoid 
set times for these conversations ; in them question and 
answer should play a large part ; the more easily (if 
not very frequently) the teacher " drops into " one of 
them for a few vivacious minutes, the better. Some 
incident of the schoolroom life that has just occurred, 
or some matter in the lesson in reading or history, may 
well interrupt the routine of the ordinary recitation, as 
the teacher asks the opinions of the class or of the school 
on the moral point in question, incites them to think 
more carefully about it, and indicates the conclusion to 
which long experience has brought the world of man. 
The school itself will, naturally, supply the starting- 
point at least for the majority of these ethical talks, for, 
like every other social institution, it has its moral law 
which must be observed by all its members in order to 
attain its end. The plainly visible chief function of the 
public school is to impart the elements of knowledge. 
To this end there must be full obedience to the natu- 
ral authority, the teacher ; the prescribed conditions of 
quiet, order, and studiousness must be observed by the 
pupils. Punctuality in attendance and readiness for all 
the exercises ; truthfulness in regard to absence from 
school, tardiness, or any other failure to comply with 
the regular order ; honorable conduct with respect to 



MORALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 13 

methods of passing examinations ; polite treatment of 
the other scholars ; attention and courtesy to the teacher, 
— such are some of the moral necessities of the school- 
room to be met by the scholars. 

The pupils have no duties which should not be met 
by an equal faithfulness to his duties on the part of 
the teacher, who should not be there teaching unless 
interested in his work, qualified for it, and industrious 
in improving his practice of it. He must be just and 
impartial in his treatment of the scholars ; he must, 
having the authority, exhibit the virtues of a ruler. 
Teaching politeness and honor, the instructor should 
be an honorable gentleman. He has some advantages 
over the parents at home in respect to the moral disci- 
pline demanded by the schoolroom. Indulgence or par- 
tiality for any individual child is out of place, of course, 
whereas at home it may sometimes be very natural ; 
the aim of the school is more limited and definite than 
that of the home; the hours are set, the labors are 
plainly marked out, and to accomplish them success- 
fully something like military discipline is necessary. 
On the other hand, the teacher has no direct influence 
over the pupil except in the school hours, and his ear- 
nest efforts may be rendered almost useless by the in- 
difference, or the hostility even, of parents. But none 
the less must he strive to connect the morality of the 
schoolroom, which he can enforce, with the morality 
of life outside, as resting on the same general principles 
of reason. While the first rudiments of common sense 
will keep him from speaking of any vice, such as lying 
or stealing or drunkenness, in such a way as to proclaim 
his knowledge that it prevails in any scholar's home, 
he is still free to enlarge upon the manifold evil con- 
sequences of it. Thus his word may help somewhat to 
keep children pure in the midst of a bad home atmos- 
phere, which he is otherwise powerless to change. 

" Word," — this will usually be easy for the teacher 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

to give in attempting moral education; but nowhere 
else does word amount to so little compared with ex- 
ample. If the word is not reinforced by the example, 
its influence will be small. The demand upon the pa- 
tience and good nature of the public-school teacher is 
great, and by the vast majority the call is well met ; 
but one good result of teaching practical morals may 
be in that reaction upon the teacher himself which is 
seen in other lines. What one teaches he learns more 
thoroughly than in any other way. So in respect to 
morals : the conscientious teacher, who cannot fail to 
apply to himself and his own conduct the precepts of 
justice and kindness w r hich he instils into his pupils' 
minds, may be almost as much benefited by the study 
as the scholar. John Milton thought that "he who 
would not be frustrate of his hope to write well here- 
after in laudable things ought himself to be a true 
poem ; that is, a composition and pattern of the honor- 
ablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of 
heroic men or famous cities unless he have in himself 
the experience and the practice of all that which is 
praiseworthy." As Milton would have the poet him- 
self a poem, so the excellent teacher of morals will be 
morality incarnate ; showing forth its gospel as well as 
its law in the daily exhibition of sweetness and light, 
he will be " not virtuous, but virtue " itself ! How diffi- 
cult, but how necessary, is such a preparation of the 
heart and will in the well-rounded instructor of chil- 
dren or of men one does not need to reiterate to the 
teacher who has found his true vocation. 

A single caution may be needed here by the most con- 
scientious. Children take example from the whole man 
or woman instructing them. A severe conception of his 
duty may make a teacher sometimes harsh, where a 
little measure of good nature would be more effective 
in correcting the offence. " You have not fulfilled every 
duty until you have fulfilled the duty of being pleas- 



MORALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 15 

ant " is a good saying to remember in the schoolroom. 
Strength of mind and fulness of knowledge have a 
moral bearing on the teacher's character ; good taste, 
refinement, a sense of beauty, — these too should be cul- 
tivated in himself by the instructor of youth. They 
will fit him to be a better and more persuasive moral 
guide ; they will not only favorably affect his own char- 
acter, but they will also diffuse a moral influence, not 
the less powerful because of his unconsciousness of its 
existence. 

Having answered the three questions as to the possi- 
bility, the desirability, and the general method of moral 
instruction in schools, I need add but a few paragraphs 
on the nature of this manual and the best way to use 
it. It is intended solely for the teacher : it is not a 
catechism for the scholar ; it is not a book from which 
the teacher is to read selections to the school. It aims 
solely to be a help to instructors of children in prepar- 
ing short talks on practical morals. 1 There is, to my 
knowledge, very little helpful literature in this special 
field ; and in what there is I have not happened to find 
any work which takes the line I have chosen as the 
best to follow. In this venture at making a properly 
scientific handbook of practical ethics to aid the teacher 
as he is aided by manuals on the teaching of geogra- 
phy, arithmetic, and other studies, I have not crossed 
the line between morality and religion. But every one 
who uses this manual should beware of supposing that 
because the author has omitted appeals to certain great 
beliefs and sentiments of mankind, he is therefore a 
disbeliever in them. I am strongly of the opinion that 
the line followed in this book is, substantially, the best 
to take ; that in our common schools it is well to begin 
and to end as I have done. Parents at home, preachers 

1 The teacher will not, for this reason, think the style of these 
chapters too simple ; I have often written as if addressing boys and 
girls. 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

in the pulpit, or teachers in the Sunday school will 
supplement a distinctively scientific teaching of morals 
with a more religious or theological view. But no one 
can properly say that the method here taken is either 
anti-religious or anti-theological. Morality is here viewed 
as a practical art which has, of course, a working theory 
that it is well to know ; but it seems unadvisable to ex- 
tend this theory, in the case of children in our public 
schools, by bringing in considerations which are dis- 
tinctively religious or theological. Religion may, later 
in life, become one of the greatest inspirations to good 
conduct, and a rational theology may supplement a prac- 
tical science of morals most happily. Both, however, are 
here simply left out of view as subjects too great for the 
common school, and too much complicated with unset- 
tled controversies. So, likewise, ethical theory has been 
shunned, in order to make clearer and easier the suffi- 
ciently difficult task of the teacher. 

When the teacher who takes up this book has become 
well enough acquainted with it to sympathize with its 
spirit and appreciate its leading ideas, h£ will be wise 
if he uses it for the purposes of the schoolroom in an 
independent fashion. I would not advise a consecutive 
series of talks to the scholars, following the order of 
the chapters. This order is based upon a logical con- 
ception, but the development of it is meant for the in- 
structor. The matter may well be left to the judgment 
of each individual teacher to decide, according as he is 
more or less inclined to system. But any striking oc- 
casion in school life fitted for driving home a moral 
precept ought to be improved at once, without regard 
to the place of a given duty in a handbook. A very 
free use of this volume will be the best use, so long as 
its method and spirit are accepted and followed. This 
method is to hold fast to the concrete and the actual ; 
this spirit is cleaving to righteousness as the great mat- 
ter in human life. 



MORALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 17 

These fifteen short chapters begin with a simple ex- 
planation of Life under Law, showing what it means to 
live, as mankind does, in a law-abiding Universe. The 
special significance of Moral Law and Obedience to it 
is the next subject. Obedience is possible mainly 
through the power of Self -Control, which must be fun- 
damental in the nature of any moral being. Exercising 
this, he can practice Truthfulness, Justice, and Kind- 
ness, not as instincts, acting more or less fitfully, but 
as perpetual forces, working steadily from within. Af- 
ter pausing to consider the Great Words of Morality, 
such as "duty " and " conscience," we pass to the groups 
of duties implied when we speak of Home, Work, Honor, 
and Personal Habits, — the last phrase covering "du- 
ties to one's self," as we often hear them called. The 
obligations to our country of Patriotism and Political 
Duty could not be omitted here. The meaning of Char- 
acter and of Moral Progress is next considered, and we 
conclude with a chapter on life according to the Golden 
Eule, the most important precept of practical morals. 

In the text which forms the body of this book, the 
teacher, as has been said, will not find discussions of 
the origin of the moral sense, the nature of conscience, 
the final test of right, and other similar matters which 
belong to the psychology or the metaphysic of ethics, 
not to practical morality. He will do well to consult, 
according to his interest, the books on ethics which are 
occupied largely with these matters ; he will probably 
gain more in the way of illustrations from actual conduct 
found in such works than in any lasting satisfaction of 
his own mind as to the perennial problems of ethics. 
The constant appeal in the schoolroom should be to 
experience which has fully shown the consequence of 
obedience and disobedience to the simpler moral laws of 
conduct here treated. Especially, whenever it is prac- 
ticable, should the law in question be traced in the 
experience of the children themselves, in what they 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

have seen, heard, felt, or done, at home, in school, or 
elsewhere. 

The object of the Notes is to furnish supplementary 
matter to the text, in the way of hints for the develop- 
ment of the subject ; illustrations from biography and 
history, which could only be referred to here ; quo- 
tations, or references to passages, from great writers, 
particularly the poets and moralists, bearing upon the 
point of conduct in question ; and occasional indications 
of places in the works on ethics generally accessible in 
which these points are well treated. It is evident that 
these Notes might be extended almost indefinitely ; 
comparatively few are given, and in this direction es- 
pecially the manual will need revision. The skilful in- 
structor, accustomed to teach without relying upon a 
book, will know how to take the material in the text 
and the notes, work it over in his own mind, and give 
it forth in a form suited to the needs of the schoolroom 
and the hour. 

One more suggestion remains : the songs sung in the 
school may be made influential in bringing home a 
sound moral lesson to the scholar's mind. Beyond its 
general refining influence, music may thus become an 
agreeable instrument for fixing plain truths of conduct 
deep in the memory and the heart. The songs should 
not be made exclusively didactic, but after a short talk 
on truthfulness, for instance, the moral could hardly be 
left on the mind more felicitously than with singing, 
"Be the matter what it may, Always tell the truth ! " 

In this attempt to set forth the laws of the good life 
— which is therefore the best, the happiest, the most 
truly successful life — in such a manner as to aid the 
great cause of the education of the young, I have used 
material from many quarters. A careful inquiry has 
not brought to notice any book, however, in English, 
French, or German constructed on the lines here fol- 
lowed. Books of ethical philosophy are many in these 



MORALS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 19 

languages ; but handbooks of practical morals for schools 
are comparatively very few. But wherever I have found 
anything to my purpose I have appropriated it. A book 
of this kind, as a German author has well said, should 
be a collective work to which many minds have contrib- 
uted; he would be pleased to have his own volume 
quoted as written " by the professors and schoolmasters 
of Germany." So, in offering this small book to the pub- 
lic-school teachers of my country, to make of it what 
use they may, I am careless of originality or plagiarism, 
but I earnestly invite such suggestions for its improve- 
ment as shall make it in the truest sense " a book by 
the teachers of America." 



NOTES. 



Moral education in the public schools is one of the " ques- 
tions of the day " most frequently debated in the press. The 
Christian Union and the Independent of New York, Public Opin- 
ion of Washington, and the Christian Register of Boston, have 
had of recent years many noteworthy expressions of opinion 
from prominent educators on the subject. Cardinal Gibbons has 
ably stated the argument against secular schools. Particularly 
good is a little pamphlet by W. T. Harris, the United States 
Commissioner of Education, entitled Morality in the Schools: it 
is a review of the discussion printed in the Christian Register, 
January 31, 1889. Mistaken methods of teaching morals with- 
out religion, are described, and a better way indicated, in a pa- 
per on Ethics in the Sunday School, by W. L. Sheldon of St. 
Louis. See also Problems in American Society, by J. H. Crooker. 
Among articles in the periodicals are Religion in State Educa- 
tion, by J. H. Seelye, Forum, i. 427; Training in Ethical Science, 
by H. H. Curtis, Popular Science Monthly, xxvii. 96; Moral and 
Industrial Training, by G-. R. Stetson, Andover Review, vi. 351; 
Religion, Morals, and Schools, by M. J. Savage, The Arena, i. 
503. 

The Ethical Record of Philadelphia and its successor, The In- 
ternational Journal of Ethics, have frequently considered the 



20 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

place of morals in education, and the best methods of instruc- 
tion. Some of Professor Felix Adler's valuable lectures on moral 
training have been printed in pamphlet form. 

In the multitude of works on pedagogy, which have more or 
less to say on the moral nature, and the wisest ways of develop- 
ing it, these books may be named as among the best: Plato's 
Republic, books iii. and iv. ; Richter's Levana; Herbert Spencer's 
Education ; A. Bain's Education as a Science ; Rosenkranz's Phi- 
losophy of Education, part II. chapters xii.-xviii.; G. Compayre^s 
Lectures on Teaching, part I. chapters ix.-xii. ; and Psychology; 
other works on psychology by J. M. Baldwin, J. Dewey, D. J. 
Hill, and James Sully ; The Senses and the Will, by W. Preyer; 
The Education of Man, by Froebel. Hints on Home Teaching, by 
Edwin Abbot, D. D. ; School Life, a series of lessons, by Mrs. 
F. B. Ames ; and Notes of Lessons on Moral Subjects, by F. Hack- 
wood (T. Nelson & Sons), are particularly helpful. 

A point not to be overlooked by the teacher is the use of pro- 
verbs (" the wisdom of many in the wit of one "), which will 
often be effective in fixing a moral truth in the child's mind. 
Such a book as Bartlett's Familiar Quotations will supply brief 
passages of higher literary merit, bearing on points of common 
conduct. The reading exercises, especially the supplementary 
reading, may well be chosen with an ethical aim. While the 
school-room itself supplies the natural basis for instruction in 
morals, by precept and by example, much moralizing on every 
little incident should be avoided. The chief aim of the school, 
after all is said, is to get knowledge. 

The biographies of Arnold of Rugby, and other great educa- 
tional reformers (see R. H. Quick's work with this title) will be 
useful. Every teacher has, in a sense, to be a re-former of char- 
acter, and Coleridge's lines (page iv.) indicate finely the chief 
virtues such a reformer must himself possess. 



THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 



CHAPTER I. 
LIFE UNDER LAW. 

1. All our human life is lived under Law. At 

the outset let us be clear in our minds as to just what 
we mean by this comprehensive statement. We are 
well aware that in all free, civilized countries, such as 
our own, there is something called "the fundamental 
law," or " the Constitution " of the country. Thus the 
United States Constitution is for all the States. More- 
over, whether we live in Massachusetts, Ohio, Califor- 
nia, Louisiana, or any other State of the Union, we 
live under a State Constitution, too, which is in har- 
mony with the " fundamental law " of the whole coun- 
try. Congress and the State legislatures pass laws to 
adapt the provisions of the Constitutions to the circum- 
stances and needs of our own time. Many large vol- 
umes contain these laws, which do not promise to re- 
ward any one for doing well, but declare punishments 
for persons who do not act in conformity with what 
they prescribe. Policemen, constables, or sheriffs ar- 
rest men or women who are supposed to be " breaking 
the law " of the town or city or State or Nation, and 
they are confined in jails or prisons or kept on bail, 
until they are tried and found to be innocent or guilty 
by the courts. Judges are appointed to preside over 
these courts, at the public expense, and juries are 



22 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

chosen to decide whether the accused person has actu- 
ally broken the law or not. There is a special class of 
persons, lawyers, who devote themselves to studying 
and practising law; they go into court and argue in 
behalf of one side or the other in a suit. 

Now, when we say that the jury has convicted a per- 
son (found him guilty) of breaking the law, what do 
we mean ? We do not intend to say that the law is 
something which can be broken as a pane of glass is 
broken by throwing a stone through it. We get a new 
pane of glass set in such a case, because the old one is 
no longer good for our purpose, to keep out the wind 
and the rain. But when a man breaks the law against 
taking human life by committing a murder, we do not 
have to pass a new law. The law which the murderer 
disobeys is the expression in words of the will and pur- 
pose of the people of this State that no person shall 
take the life of another at his own pleasure merely. If 
one man kills another, not in self-defence, he is a law- 
breaker in this sense, that he disobeys the expres- 
sion of the will of the people. By the methods they 
have established for such cases, they proceed to enforce 
the law against him, i. e., to put it into effect by mak- 
ing him suffer certain consequences of his bad deed as 
a penalty. 

This punishment was laid down in the law before 
the murder was committed, and it was intended to be 
so severe as to prevent any person from killing a hu- 
man being. But if, for any reason, a man or woman 
has actually been killed by another, then we say, " The 
law must be enforced ; and the murderer must lose his 
life," because this is the punishment laid. down in the 
law on purpose to keep people's lives safe generally. 
If the murderer is hanged (or imprisoned for life, in- 
stead, under certain circumstances) then the law against 
murder has been " enforced," and we might well say that 
the law has broken the murderer. He acted contrary 



LIFE UNDER LAW. 23 

to the law ; but he was afterwards punished according 
to the law. He disobeyed ; but he had to take the con- 
sequences which the law threatened against disobedi- 
ence. So with respect to offences of less importance 
than the taking of a human life : if a man breaks into 
another man's house at night and carries away some of 
that man's property, or if he steals something out of a 
dry-goods store in broad daylight, he is sent to jail, if 
it is proved that he did the act, and he is kept in prison 
as long as the law has determined for such cases. 

This, then, is what we mean by " breaking" and 
" enforcing " the statute law of the Commonwealth in 
which we live. The great majority of the people living 
in the State believe that their lives and their property 
will not be safe unless laws prescribing punishments 
for certain bad actions are passed and enforced. So 
they choose legislators who make these laws, and pay 
judges and jailers to carry them out whenever any evil- 
minded person disobeys them. In all civilized coun- 
tries human beings live under law in this sense, and we 
say that " a government of laws, not of men " is right, 
meaning that the same rule should be applied to all 
alike who commit a crime, and that no man should 
have the power to suspend or set aside the law so that 
a guilty person may escape the punishment he has de- 
served. 

But this is only one meaning of " living under law." 
The laws of which we have been speaking were made 
by men, and they are changed from time to time, as 
men's ideas alter. But when we say "a law of na- 
ture," we are using the word law to mean something 
very different, something which men did not make 
and cannot alter. It is a law of nature, for instance, 
that the tides shall rise and fall twice' in every twenty- 
four hours : it is a law of nature that the roots of an 
apple-tree shall spread out in the ground and that it 
shall leaf and blossom and bear fruit in the upper air 



24 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

and sunshine. It is a law of nature that water shall run 
down hill, not up hill. We should only make ourselves 
ridiculous if we passed laws in our legislatures that the 
tide should go out and come in only once in the twenty- 
four hours ; that apples should grow in the ground like 
potatoes, and that rivers should run over hills instead 
of going around them. No law of nature can be set 
aside by laws that man makes. We may often be mis- 
taken as to what the actual laws of nature are : we have 
to discover them by experience, and reasoning on our 
experience, of the facts of nature. But when we have 
once found a real law like that of gravitation, the 
widest-reaching of all laws of nature, we should never 
think that we can make it of no effect by saying so, or 
voting so. 

A " law of nature " is our expression of the fact that 
natural forces act in certain ways. The uniformity 
of nature means that we find in all our experience 
that these ways do not change without a cause. Under 
the same conditions the natural forces — gravitation, 
heat, light, and electricity, for instance — always act 
in the same manner and produce the same effects. Just 
as we live together in towns and cities and states, feel- 
ing safe as to our persons and property so far as other 
persons are concerned, because of the human laws that 
have been made to protect us against attack by evil- 
doers, so we have a very much greater confidence in the 
laws of nature which man did not make and cannot 
alter. We feel perfectly sure that the force of gravita- 
tion will hold our houses down to the ground next year 
as well as this year ; so we build them to last for years, 
and we live in them in entire security. We are very con- 
fident that day will succeed night every evening that we 
lie down to sleep : we have no fear that harvest will not 
follow upon seed-time. Gravitation, and the revolution 
of the earth on its axis, and the growth of plants from 
seeds are all parts of the great uniformity of nature. 



LIFE UNDER LAW. 25 

With respect to these laws of nature, we may say even 
more strongly than we could say it of the wisest laws 
of man's making, " They cannot be broken : they break 
the persons who disobey themP If a little child puts its 
hand on a hot stove, its hand will be burned : if a boy 
who cannot swim goes alone into deep water, out of the 
reach of help, he will be drowned. It is the nature of 
fire and hot things to burn human flesh : it is the na- 
ture of water to cause the death of a person who gets 
under it so that he cannot keep on breathing. The 
judges and the juries sometimes let a person go free of 
punishment if he makes it seem probable that he did 
not intend to break the law printed in the statute-book ; 
or they impose a lighter punishment than they would 
in a case where they were sure that the person diso- 
beyed the law knowingly. But what we call the " laws 
of nature " were not made by human beings ; so we can- 
not ask our fellow-men to change them or alter the pen- 
alties because we did not know all about them or intend 
to violate them. The man who handles a wire charged 
with electricity will receive a shock just the same, 
whether he knew anything about the risk or did not. 
It is our business to learn the laws of nature and to act 
in accordance with them. 

These laws are very many in number, and we are 
constantly learning more and more about them : the 
more we learn, the more sure we become of the uni- 
formity of nature. This truth is the foundation of 
science and the reason for our daily confidence in the 
future. If we believe that hereafter the same causes 
will produce the same effects as now, under the same 
conditions, we can plan our lives with a firm trust that 
we are building on a sure foundation. This is the rea- 
son why we are continually inquiring into nature and 
its laws ; we study physics and chemistry and botany 
and physiology, and all the other " natural sciences," as 
we call them, in order first to know, and then to act in 



26 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

accordance with our knowledge. We study the facts of 
natural things and forces in order to find the laws of 
their existence and their operation and in order to make 
our own actions conform to the nature of things. 
We wish to make use of the forces of nature, such as 
heat and electricity, that they may serve our conve- 
nience. After we have found how these forces act, what 
the laws of them are, we have no choice about obeying 
or disobeying, and taking the consequences or not. We 
must take the consequences, if we act in one way 
or another, which " naturally " follow from that action. 
A statement of all the " laws " of any thing in nature 
would be a complete expression in words of the nature 
of that thing : so every thing or being is acting in 
accordance with law when it is acting according to its 
nature. We cannot reasonably expect that things will 
act contrary to their nature. We never find rocks, for 
example, putting out woody fibres and rooting them- 
selves in the soil. We do not expect ever to see oak 
trees walking up and down the street, or animals stand- 
ing on their heads to eat their food. 

Every law of nature has an interest and a value for 
mankind, if purely as a matter of knowledge. But 
among all the sciences, the most interesting to man and 
woman are those which declare the facts and laws of 
our own human nature. We are living beings, and so we 
must act according to the laws of life ; biology is the 
name we give to the science that tells us of the facts 
and laws of life in general, whether in plants or in ani- 
mals. We are animals, and we call by the name of 
physiology the science that informs us about the facts 
and laws of animal life, whether in dogs, or horses > or 
any other of the " lower animals," or in mankind. 

As we study this animal life we find, as we get nearer 
and nearer in the scale to human beings, that there is 
more and more of that wonderful life which we call the 
life of mind. So we have a science of mental physiology 



LIFE UNDER LAW. 27 

which is mainly made up of what men have found out 
about the organs and functions of the human mind — 
the brain and nerves which we can see, and the feeling 
and thinking and willing which we are conscious of in 
ourselves, but which no one can see. We can only 
infer that others are feeling or thinking or willing by 
the signs which they make, in expression or speech or 
action. 

The fact that men are especially thinking animals 
with minds, is the reason why we have many other sci- 
ences than mental physiology, which has to do only with 
those organs of the mind which it is possible to see 
in a human being, the brain and the nervous system. 
Psychology is the name we give (" knowledge of the mind 
or soul ") to the science of the human mind in general. 
But this is a very great subject in itself : so we divide 
it into branches, and give each one of these a name. 
There is the science of logic, for example, which brings 
together the facts about the ways in which men reason ; 
the science of economics, which relates how they get 
wealth, and consume or distribute it ; the science of 
politics, which expounds the methods in which men have 
come together under various forms of government ; and 
the science of history, which shows us what mankind 
has done in all ages and countries where any record 
has been preserved of its doings. 

All these mental sciences show certain facts of our 
nature as human beings, and sift them so as to discover 
their laws. When these laws are once actually found, 
we have no choice about obeying them and suffering a 
penalty or not. We must obey them if we would pros- 
per mentally. So doing, we live in accordance with our 
nature as intellectual beings : but if we disobey these 
laws, as to a limited extent we may and can, we must 
take the natural consequences. If, for instance, we rea- 
son contrary to the laws of logic, which are simply state- 
ments of the way in which we must reason to arrive at 



28 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

correct conclusions, we come to a wrong result. We 
cannot reason or fail to reason, just as we please, and 
still have a right to demand that we arrive at the truth 
in both cases alike. We cannot act contrary to the ways 
in which the science of economics shows that men ac- 
quire property, and then rationally complain that we 
are not well-off as to property. There are laws of logic 
and laws of economics which are just as sure and just 
as binding as the laws of physics or chemistry. They 
are, indeed, often harder to discover, as human nature 
is very complex, and we are subject to so many laws 
that we are more apt to make mistakes about them than 
about rocks and plants and the lower animals. But 
whether we know the law or do not know it, it is still 
in force. The one wise course for us to follow is to dis- 
cover the law, if possible, and then conform our action 
to it. This is not a world in which we can " do as we 
please," and prosper. On the contrary, as a very wise 
man has said, " Only law can give us freedom ; " we 
must obey the laws of our own human nature and of all 
nature, if we would have true liberty and happiness. 

Most of all is what we have been saying true of the 
science of ethics or morals (the two words mean the 
same thing, one being derived from the Greek, the 
other from the Latin language). Ethics is the sci- 
ence of human conduct in personal relations. It 
tells us of the facts of human life which concern human 
beings, not in respect to reasoning (logic) for example, 
not in respect to the way to make and spend money 
(economics), not in respect to setting up a government 
that will last (politics), but in respect to the common 
conduct of men toward each other in the relations of 
character. Ethics, or morals, is a more difficult science 
to define than the others which we have been naming, 
so easy is it for almost any human action to take on a 
moral bearing, i. e., to affect the welfare of other per- 
sons than the doer of the act, or to influence his own 



LIFE UNDER LAW. 29 

ethical life. But, on the other hand, the vast majority 
of acts and words and feelings which may be called 
moral or immoral are of the commonest, and are con- 
stantly happening every day. 

We live in society : not one of us can live entirely 
apart, as an isolated individual. Human society is just 
as much a fact as any single person is a fact. Men, 
we say, are social beings. Their nature marks them 
out as intended to live together, members of a family, 
of a neighborhood, of a town, of a nation, and of the 
great world of human beings. Ethics is not, of course, 
the only science of human action in society, for men 
in order to carry on trade or establish a government, 
for instance, must be living in communities, and so 
economics and politics are social sciences too ; but eth- 
ics is preeminently the most fundamental and impor- 
tant science of human life together. The art of 
morals is by far the most interesting and constant of 
all arts to universal mankind. We are all the time liv- 
ing in social relations ; society of some kind is abso- 
lutely necessary to human welfare. The science and the 
art which are concerned with the personal relations of 
the members of society to each other must thus be of 
supreme interest. No questions are more common than 
questions of moral goodness or badness ; no words are 
more often employed than " right " and " wrong ; " 
nothing is more thought of than the personal relations 
into which moral qualities may at any time enter ; 
nothing is of more consequence to the very existence of 
human society than virtue, or the moral life. 

It would be a very strange exception to all the rest 
of our life if these personal relations were not subject 
to law like other relations. Moral law, in the family, 
in the neighborhood, in the political organizations of 
men, is, in fact, the earliest of all laws to force itself 
upon the attention of men. Unless the social law is in 
large degree obeyed, the family would not endure, the 



30 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

State would perish, men would fly apart from one 
another and live in solitude, and civilization would thus 
become impossible. So important to the very existence 
of social life is the moral life, that we find the earliest 
codes of law were largely collections of moral precepts. 
At once, on reflection, we see how reasonable this is. 
The moral law is the law which expresses the nature of 
society ; just as the single human being must obey the 
laws of his own nature to some degree, even to live, so 
a society, a larger or smaller collection of human beings 
must obey the moral law, however imperfectly, in order 
even to exist. It may have been a very long time before 
books were written on moral science, but from the ear- 
liest days of human life on this earth there must have 
been some practical recognition of the moral law, for 
otherwise human society would have been impossible. 
To put this truth in another form, we might say that 
human nature has always been true to itself and that 
man has always acted out his own nature. 

Since we can reason about an art and imagine it car- 
ried to a perfection which only few persons, if any, 
have ever attained, we may conceive a perfect morality, 
according to certain principles, which few individuals 
have practised thoroughly at any time. There is an 
ideal excellence which may be imagined in every 
direction of human effort. Nowhere else, as a matter 
of fact, has the ideal been earlier conceived or more 
constantly held up to mankind than in this very sphere 
of conduct, however rarely it has been realized. But 
as the moral law is the very law of life of human so- 
ciety, it has always been recognized and obeyed in some 
degree. 

Mankind makes progress in morality, as in other 
arts of life, by taking heed to its ways. So strong is the 
force, however, in most human beings that makes them 
think too much of individual happiness and too little of 
the social welfare, that moral progress toward the higher 



LIFE UNDER LAW. 31 

levels of conduct is necessarily slow. But we are able 
to-day to see at least that the moral law is inscribed in 
the nature of man, that its facts are a part of the facts 
of human nature, and that obedience to it is in the line 
of the true development of human nature. We live 
under moral law as we live under physical law, under 
chemical law, under physiological law. We cannot 
escape from it, except by leaving human society, for it 
is of the very nature of that society. We find our wel- 
fare in obedience to it ; we suffer if we disobey it, 
knowingly or unknowingly. Owing to the complexity 
of many social relations we cannot be so exact in pre- 
dicting the consequences of immorality as of disobe- 
dience to the laws of health, but we may be just as con- 
fident, despite all apparent exceptions, that there is a 
moral law and that it is binding on all human beings, 
as we are that there are laws for the body, which must 
be observed if one would have good health. The first 
thing for a rational human being here to do is to 
acknowledge that he lives in every time, place, and 
condition, under law, and, most of all, under the 
moral law of universal human nature, to which he 
owes obedience. What this obedience implies we will 
consider in the next chapter. 



NOTES. 



The teacher will do well to dwell upon the great conceptions 
of modern thought, the universe governed by one law, the uni- 
formity of nature, and the inclusion of human life under law. 
He will be aided himself by such books as J. S. Mill's Logic, The 
Principles of Science, by W. S. Jevons, John Fiske's Cosmic Phi- 
losophy, and The Reign of Law, by the Duke of Argyll. The 
popular writings of Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, and M. J. Savage, 
are full of illustrations of scientific conceptions. The following 
quotation from Professor Huxley's Science Primer ; Introductory, 



32 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

explains the meaning of the phrase " a law of nature." (The 
sight of the Statutes of the State would impress the child's mind 
forcibly.) 

" When we have made out, by careful and repeated observa- 
tion, that something is always the cause of a certain effect, or 
that certain events always take place in the same order, we speak 
of the truth thus discovered as a law of nature. ... In fact, 
everything that we know about the powers and properties of 
natural objects, and about the order of nature, may properly be 
termed a law of nature. ... A law of man tells what we may 
expect society will do under certain circumstances, and a law of 
nature tells us what we may expect natural objects will do under 
certain circumstances. . . . Natural laws are not commands, but 
assertions respecting the invariable order of nature; and they 
remain laws only so long as they can be shown to express that 
order. To speak of the violation or the suspension of a law of 
nature is an absurdity. All that the phrase can really mean is, 
that under certain circumstances the assertion contained in the 
law is not true; and the just conclusion is, not that the order of 
nature is interrupted, but that we have made a mistake in stat- 
ing that order. A true natural law is a universal rule, and as 
such admits of no exception." 

So Montesquieu wrote : " Laws, in their most general signifi- 
cation, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of 
things. In this sense all beings have their laws." 

Here are three famous sayings by lawyers on man-made 
law: — 

"Reason is the life of law; nay, the common law itself is no- 
thing else but reason. . . . The law, which is perfection of rea- 
son." (Sir E. Coke.) 

" The absolute justice of the State, enlightened by the perfect 
reason of the State. That is law." (Rufus Choate.) 

" There is a higher law than the Constitution." (W. H. Sew- 
ard.) 

Three other great minds have thus spoken of the relations of 
law and liberty : — 

" That liberty which alone is the fruit of piety, of temperance, 
and unadulterated virtue." (Milton.) 

"Liberty must be limited in order to.be possessed." (Burke.) 

" Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint." (Dan- 
iel Webster.) 



LIFE UNDER LAW. 33 

As a popular exposition of the law of the land under which 
we live, E. P. Dole's Talks About Law is an excellent manual. 
The idea of justice is intimately connected with the political life 
of mankind, and the teacher will naturally be led into the study 
of polities as a science. Bryce's American Commonwealth, Wood- 
row Wilson's The State and Federal Governments of the United 
States, and John Fiske's American Political Ideas, are three good 
books to start with ; see the notes to Chapter XII. of this vol- 
ume. 

" Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, 
neither is, in my opinion, safe." — Edmund Burke. 



CHAPTEE II. 
OBEDIENCE TO MORAL LAW. 

How do we obey what we call a physical or natu- 
ral law, and what does such obedience mean ? To 
answer these two questions, let us take some very plain 
and specific instances. Mankind has discovered, as the 
most universal of all laws of physical nature, the law 
of gravitation. This law finds expression in the facts 
of weight and of falling bodies. Like every other law 
of general nature, this is fixed and determined. We 
cannot abolish it either by our private will, or by a 
majority vote of all the people on earth. It is the force 
of gravitation, indeed, which keeps our bodies on the 
earth ! When we are to build a large house we act in 
accordance with our knowledge of gravitation by dig- 
ging deep into the ground first, and then laying the 
strongest part of the building below the surface, as a 
foundation for the rest. We do not think because we 
have but a short time for building, or because we have 
but little money to build with, or simply because " we 
happen to feel like it," that it will be well enough to go 
on fast with the work, and run up a high building with- 
out digging deep to lay a strong and heavy foundation 
wall. The power of gravitation would bring the house 
to the ground of its own weight if we did so ; and men 
would call us, as we should deserve to be called, 
" fools." 

We cannot know just how much weight to place on a 
certain foundation unless we have studied the matter in 
books, or have had much practical experience ; but, if 
we are wise, we consult those who do know, and build 



OBEDIENCE TO MORAL LAW. 35 

accordingly. We should be very foolish, indeed, if we 
had such an idea of our own importance as to think 
that the natural force would be modified, or fail to act 
as it usually does, because it is we who have built the 
house, however unwisely. " Shall gravitation cease if 
you go by ? " writes the poet. No ! it will not cease ; 
and your bad building will fall, and perhaps crush you 
in its falling. We obey this natural law of gravitation 
by building as experienced men tell us we must build if 
we would be sure that our house stand firm. We have 
no choice in the matter. Stone and wood and iron, and 
the earth on which they rest, will act according to the 
laws of their own natures, and they will pay no atten- 
tion to our fond wishes, our caprices, or our ignorance. 
They are all under universal law; they are parts of one 
whole, — the universe of things, — and they act accord- 
ingly, each in its sphere. We, too, must so act wisely, 
with a knowledge of law and according to law, if we 
would have our houses stand. People cannot build 
" just as they please " and have good houses that will 
last. Success is the result of conformity to natural law 
here ; it is shown by the fact that the house endures 
and is strong. Failure and disaster are the result of 
neglect of natural law or conscious disobedience, — the 
house falls flat. 

In our next example let us come home to ourselves, 
as human beings in animal bodies. Human physiology 
is the name we give to the science which brings together 
the facts which men have discovered by long and care- 
ful study of the human body. They have found out 
" the laws of physiology." These are the expression, 
in a few words comparatively, of the facts as to the 
ways in which the bodily forces work constantly in us. 
In accordance with their knowledge of the working of 
muscles and nerves and stomach and brain and all the 
other bodily parts and organs, the doctors tell us that 
we must do so and so if we would preserve the bodily 



36 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT, 

health, which is so indispensable a condition of human 
happiness and prosperity. They give the name Hygiene 
to the set of practical rules and directions about eat- 
ing and drinking, breathing, sleeping, work and play, 
and other functions, which are founded on their study 
of physiology. If one follows these rules he will prob- 
ably enjoy good health ; if he does not follow them he 
is altogether likely to be sick or infirm. Of course, this 
matter of good health is very much more complicated 
than the matter of building a house so that it will stand 
firm. There are very many more things to be taken into 
consideration, and there are, apparently, a great many 
exceptions to what we call " the laws of health," because 
the conditions under which people live are so various. 

But we need not doubt, first, that there are laws of 
health ; and second, that we know a good deal about 
them, amply enough to show us what our bodily habits, 
as a rule, should be. One law, for example, is that our 
lungs should have pure air to breathe, and that they be- 
come weakened or diseased if we breathe the same air 
over and over. Now a farmer who works outdoors 
all the summer day may sleep in a small and poorly- 
ventilated room, and may not appear to suffer very 
much from bad air. He does not suffer so much, at 
any rate, as a man would who has to work all day in a 
close factory or machine shop. This difference does 
not affect the fact that pure air is always best for the 
lungs of every one, or the truth that because* of this 
fact we should pay attention to ventilation in our 
houses and workshops. The Black Hole of Calcutta is 
the well-known instance of the absolute necessity of a 
certain amount of pure air merely to sustain -the animal 
life. But the laws of hygiene in regard to pure air are 
confirmed in our common experience when the results 
of inattention are less tragical. Bad air produces head- 
ache and languor and a low tone of bodily spirits. Such 
effects as these we cannot get rid of simply by wishing 



OBEDIENCE TO MORAL LAW. 37 

them away. We must change our habits with regard 
to the ventilation of our houses and work-places, the 
amount of exercise we take in the open air, and like 
matters. We have no choice. Our personal inclina- 
tions are not important in the case. We must have 
habits that are in conformity with our knowledge of the 
need of good, pure air ; otherwise, we shall suffer for 
our nonconformity or disobedience. 

So we might go on to speak of the rules of hygiene 
about eating and drinking, about sleep, and the work of 
hand or head. But the principle is one and the same 
throughout. Obedience to the laws of hygiene means 
conforming our actions to our knowledge of these 
laws, so as to be healthy and, so far, happy. The wise 
man values health very greatly. He knows that he did 
not make the rules of health and that he cannot unmake 
them. They are " bottom facts " of human nature, 
which all mankind cannot destroy. We must, then, if 
we wish to be well and strong and have a good animal 
life, submit ourselves to the guidance of those who 
know the laws of hygiene and learn of them how to fix 
our habits. 

We have always to bear in mind that we shall thus 
attain, by acting in accordance with the laws of things, 
all the happiness and prosperity which things can give 
us. Obedience is the highway to welfare. We do not 
give up our own whims and follies and submit to the 
rule of facts and law merely in order to discipline our- 
selves, without regard to the result. Precisely the con- 
trary is true. The happy, prosperous life would be 
impossible without conformity to the laws of human 
nature ; therefore, the sooner we learn what these laws 
are, and obey them in our practice, the larger will be 
the measure of our welfare. The service of natural law 
is perfect freedom ; it is the highest liberty we can con- 
ceive. Universal nature is under the reign of law, as 
Ulysses says in " Troilus and Cressida " : — 



38 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

u The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre 
Observe degree, priority, and place, 
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, 
Office and custom, in all line of order." 

Now what do we mean especially by moral law ? 
When we speak these two words we imply that the 
actions, the whole life, of hnman beings in their rela- 
tions to one another are under law ; that there are rules 
for social welfare and individual happiness which, as 
men have discovered by long experience, are entitled to 
be called laws of human conduct, and that these are 
not dependent on any person's caprice or whim or fancy, 
but are the consequence of the great facts of the nature 
of man living in society. We are not free, under the 
reign of moral law, to " do as we please," any more 
than we are free to observe the law of gravitation in 
house-building or the laws of health, or not, just as we 
feel inclined. We must obey, or we shall suffer the 
penalty for disobedience. 

There are moral laws which have to be observed in 
the family, in the school, in every kind of association 
of men with other human beings, whether it be common 
social intercourse, business relationship, or the life of 
the citizens of the town, state, or nation. Men come 
together to live in families and other larger groups 
through a fundamental instinct ; it is one of the 
strongest laws of their nature that they should so do. 
Every one of these groups has its conditions of life, 
which must be observed if it is even to exist, and other 
conditions also which must be observed if it is to pros- 
per. Hence there is moral law for the family, moral 
law for the neighborhood, moral law for the school, for 
the state, for all kinds of associations. It is of the 
very nature of all these bodies of men that their mem- 
bers must act in certain ways if the associations are to 
continue. In the family, for example, the weak and 
helpless children must for years be cared for, and sup- 



OBEDIENCE TO MORAL LAW. 39 

ported by their parents. As children do not of them- 
selves know how to act wisely and live happily for all 
concerned, they have to obey their parents, who will 
teach them to act in such ways as to make life in the 
family what it should be, — peaceful, active, and happy. 
Fathers and mothers in their place should act according 
to the laws of the moral life of the family, by support- 
ing and training and loving their children. Children 
have their part to do in returning their parents' love 
and rendering a cheerful obedience to their wishes. As 
boys and girls grow up they will understand better 
and better the reasons why they are obliged to do thus 
and so. But, whether they understand it or not, they 
must obey the moral law as it comes to them from 
the lips of their parents. The bond that holds the 
family together is this very power of the father and 
mother to make their children "mind," by force, if 
need be. 

We say the word " ought " very frequently : it means 
" owe," and whenever we use it we imply that the per- 
son of whom we speak has a debt to pay. Children 
are under great obligations to their parents ; for these 
give them food and shelter and clothing and education 
and all the love and help of home. They owe a great 
deal to father and mother, who gave them life, and will 
do their best to make their lives fruitful and happy. 
So boys and girls ought (owe it) to do all they can in 
return to make life at home pleasant and cheerful for 
their parents. So, likewise, men and women owe a 
great deal to the human society in which they are liv- 
ing, and which is the source of very much of their hap- 
piness and welfare. They owe it to one another (ought) 
to be polite, to be ready to assist in case of need, to 
take an interest in each other's well-being, and in all 
their relations to give as well as take. 

" Duty " is another great word of the law which is over 
all men living together in society. Our duty is what is 



40 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

due from us to others : so it means the same thing as 
" ought/' " Ought " and " duty " — two of the greatest 
words in our language — always indicate that we live 
in society, that there are laws and conditions of social 
welfare, as of individual happiness, and that whatever 
these laws require men and women to do, in order that 
society may be strong and pure and helpful to each per- 
son who is a member of it, this all men and women owe 
to society ; this they ought to do ; this is their duty. 
"Each for all, all for each/' is the proper motto of 
human society. It is a whole in which each of us is a 
part ; and each must act, not as if he or she were the 
centre of all things, but as if recognizing that we are 
to do each his part and to take each his portion. It is 
the natural function of the child, the scholar, the ser- 
vant, the workman and the soldier, to act according to 
orders, — to obey parents, teachers, masters, foremen, or 
officers. These command in the interest of the family, 
the school, the factory, or the army-regiment as a 
whole; they are themselves subject to the moral law 
of these associations, and if they command by right, 
they also have the duty, they ought to provide for those 
who obey their orders. 

The end of all obedience to the moral law is the high- 
est and greatest welfare of every human being as an 
individual and as a member of the great body which we 
call human society* This is a body, an organism, in 
which each of us is a member. 1 If every child took its 
own way, with out regard to the advice or the command of 
its parents, the true family life would be impossible ; if 
every scholar did as he pleased about studying or recit- 
ing, the very reason for having schools at all would be 
defeated ; if servants obeyed orders from their masters 
or mistresses only when they "felt like it," little work 
would be done ; if men in a factory acted according to 

1 Compare St. Paul (First Epistle to the Corinthians, xii. 14-26), and 
Menenius Agrippa in Shakespeare's Coriolanus, I. i. 



OBEDIENCE TO MOBAL LAW. 41 

their own fancy, and idled or worked as the hnmor 
seized them, the factory would soon have to be closed 
and the men would receive no more wages ; if every 
private in a company acted as if he were just " as big a 
man " as the captain, there would be no use in trying to 
fight a battle. Thus the welfare of the whole house- 
hold, of the whole school, of the whole factory, and of 
the whole company of soldiers depends upon obedience 
to those in authority. Every person in authority, in his 
turn, is bound in duty (ought) to work for the welfare 
of each and all of those who make up the whole body 
of which he has the control. We do not obey for the 
sake of obedience ; we do not command for the sake of 
commanding, but whether we obey or command, we do 
it that each person may reach his highest happiness 
and welfare, both as an individual and as a part of 
society. 

Disobedience means disorder in all the associations of 
men with one another ; it means lawlessness, self-will, 
the setting-up of ourselves as the whole, or as the most 
important part of the whole ; it means that we ask other 
people to take our will for law, instead of the moral 
law. But this will not do in the relations of human 
beings with one another, any more than it would do in 
our relations with natural forces. Society, therefore, in 
order to preserve itself and so give its members (you 
and me and all of us) the best things that human life 
can afford, enforces moral law. Some parts of this law, 
such as those which forbid killing and robbing, are 
written down in that " law of the land " or " statute 
law," which we began by speaking of. Other com- 
mands of the moral law men have found it best not to 
try to enforce by written laws, but to leave to what we 
call public opinion to deal with. Thus, if a man is 
unkind and harsh in his treatment of his children, the 
law will not do anything to him so long as he is not 
actually cruel. Most men are influenced very much by 



42 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

what other people think and say concerning them, and 
we find by experience that many wrongs are righted 
more effectually by leaving them to public opinion to 
settle than by passing laws against them. 

Still other parts of the moral law we leave to each 
person to discover and obey for himself, according to 
his circumstances, his education and his moral sense. 
But whatever is actual moral law, tending to the wel- 
fare of each and all, is to be obeyed ; whether we know 
the law or not, we suffer bad consequences from not 
living in compliance with its demands, or we prosper 
because we are acting in accordance with it. For man 
the end of all obedience to law is his welfare ; he lives 
under law, and he finds freedom and happiness, not in 
fighting against the conditions, physical or moral, of 
human life, but in full and cheerful acceptance of them. 
Freedom is not in " having our own way," but in follow- 
ing the best ways that mankind, in its thousands of 
years of life on this earth, has discovered. Freedom is 
realized in life according to the laws of human nature 
in society. Life through obedience to reason and all 
that reason tells us of law — this is moral life, the life 
that renders human society possible, and makes it better 
and better as we learn more of the moral law and obey 
it more faithfully. The natural rulers of human so- 
ciety are those who know more of life than ourselves ; 
so we should respect the laws which have been ascer- 
tained by the wisdom and experience of many minds ; 
we should respect the voice of public opinion in regard 
to matters of right and wrong. When we have been 
educated by experience of life ourselves, we shall still 
find that the moral law is supreme over every other law 
for man, as it is simply the highest law of our own nature. 
Desire to know this law and willingness to obey it — 
this is the fundamental matter in human life. The 
spirit that is essential to our highest welfare is the 
spirit of obedience. Our first lesson is to obey father 



OBEDIENCE TO MOBAL LAW. 43 

and mother at home, but we never outgrow the necessity 
of obedience to moral law. 

" Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward must f 
He and his works like sand from earth are blown." 



NOTES. 



The desire to command, or the love of power, is one of the 
fundamental desires in human nature; with many persons it is 
predominant. Obedience is not in itself pleasant to children, or 
to men and women. But there are few leaders and many fol- 
lowers in human life. Napoleon, the most masterful of men, 
declared that he learned to command through the obedience re- 
quired at the school of Brienne, and Emerson says that " obe- 
dience alone gives the right to command." The more perfectly 
parents seek to carry out the law of the home, and teachers the 
law of the school, which prescribe duties to themselves, the more 
capable will they be of commanding wisely. Children are quick 
to observe the evil consequences of disobedience at home or in 
school when their own conduct is not in question. Press home 
to them the reasons for the very existence of such associations, 
which are defeated by insubordination. The military drill fur- 
nishes a good analogy; the lives of great generals and the his- 
tories of wars are full of incidents illustrating the prime need of 
obedience. All associations for profit or pleasure must have 
leaders, and the submission we pay them is but a type of the 
obedience mankind owes to the whole moral law. 

The great Stoic moralists, like Marcus Aurelius and Epic- 
tetus, have dwelt forcibly on the virtue of obedience. The in- 
scription on the monument at Thermopylae ran : " Go, stranger, 
and tell at Lacedsemon that we died here in obedience to her 
laws." The citizen of the ancient city was a devotee to its wel- 
fare. So A. H. Clough has said: "The highest political watch- 
word is not liberty, equality, fraternity, nor yet solidarity, but 
service" The Wisdom of Solomon declares that, " The very true 
beginning of wisdom is the desire of discipline. If a man love 
righteousness, wisdom's labors are virtues ; for she teacheth tem- 
perance and prudence, justice and fortitude ; which are such 
things as men can have nothing more profitable in their life." 



44 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

Men become masters of the forces of nature by first obeying 
their laws ; so in morality, " laws are not masters, but servants, 
and he rules them who obeys them." (H. W. Beecher.) 

See Miss E. Simcox's Natural Law; James Martineau's Types 
of Ethical Theory, vol. ii. chapter 4, and Leslie Stephen's Science 
of Ethics, for discussions of the ground of authority in the moral 
law, and Lecky's European Morals, for a good view of Stoi- 
cism. 

" I slept and dreamed that life was beauty ; 
I woke and found that life was duty." 

Duty is changed to delight when love is seen to be " the ful- 
filling of the law." 



CHAPTER III. 

SELF-CONTROL. 

It is very easy for us to say that we all ought to obey 
the moral law. But very often, and especially when we 
are young and have not had much experience of life, we 
find it hard to obey this law ourselves. Children like 
to have their own way when it seems to them pleasanter 
than to obey their parents or teachers who bid them 
take another way. John, for instance, is playing mar- 
bles, and his mother tells him to come and get ready for 
school, as he has only time enough to get there in season. 
But John prefers play to school, just then ; perhaps he 
prefers it all the time ! So he keeps on with his game, 
and his mother has to leave her work to speak to him 
again, and possibly she is obliged to come out and make 
him get ready at once. Then he is late at school, and 
probably he has got to feeling so ill-tempered, because 
he has been compelled to leave his game, that he will 
not study, and so he fails in his lesson, and the teacher 
keeps him after school to make it up. John feels 
worse than ever, and when he gets through he is dis- 
gusted with school and home, and he thinks it will be 
very fine to be a man and do as he pleases. All this is 
the result of his disobedience to his mother. But men 
and women laugh at him, and tell him that he is very 
foolish not to see how easy a time he is having now ; his 
father and mother care for him, and he does not have to 
work to get his food and lodging and clothing and edu- 
cation. They are doing their utmost to make his life, 
present and future, good and happy ; being much older, 
having been children themselves, and having gained 



46 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

much more wisdom from experience than he can have, 
they know far more thoroughly what is best for him 
than he can know. When he is grown up, and is a man 
in fact, not merely in imagination, he will have a man's 
work to do, and he should have plenty of knowledge and 
skill to do that work well ; he will not be able to " do 
as he pleases" and at the same time be a good and 
capable man. 

A considerable number of persons who think they can 
do as they please find themselves, naturally, after a 
time, in jails or prisons, because people in general will 
not allow them to do as they like, when it comes to 
stealing or cheating, or doing bodily injury to others. 
No ! the obedience due to father and mother and teacher 
is comparatively a simple and easy matter for John, 
if he did but know it. He is acting foolishly and un- 
reasonably in setting himself up so, as the only person 
whose pleasure is to be considered. As a matter of fact, 
he is not so important a person as he thinks, and the 
sooner he learns this, the better it will be for all con- 
cerned. 

Here is another boy, Thomas, who likes to play just 
as well as John does ; but he loves his mother and de- 
sires to make her happy by obeying her cheerfully and 
readily. He wishes to please the teacher by being 
punctual, and attentive to his studies in school time. So 
he quits his game at once, when his mother reminds him 
that she has an errand for him to do on the way to 
school, and that it is time to go. He walks along whis- 
tling and thinking how fortunate he is that he can some- 
times do little things, at least, to show his gratitude for 
all that his mother does for him in her love for her boy. 
When he gets to school he remembers that he is there 
to study ; he puts all his mind on his book ; the lesson 
comes easy, he recites well, the teacher is glad to see 
him so willing and ready, and he returns home with a 
light heart. All has gone well with him during the day. 



SELF-CONTROL. 47 

Why ? Because lie lias cheerfully done his part. It 

is not a great part, but it is something which no one else 
could do for him, and it is necessary that he should do 
it readily if, at home and school, all is to go on pleas- 
antly and profitably. 

When Thomas is at home, he feels that he is but one 
among several persons who make up the family ; that 
his father and mother are wiser than he and anxious to 
have him do, and to do for him, only what is best ; and 
that all goes well only when each one in the family 
group thinks of the welfare of all the others as well as 
of his own happiness ; so he tries to do his share, to 
help as much as he can in making life happy for all at 
home. When Thomas is at school, he beurs in mind 
that school is meant as a place to learn in, and that 
in order to learn well he must leave off playing, and 
" buckle down " to his book, and be quiet and obey the 
orders of the teacher. He sees that these orders are for 
the good of the whole school, of which he is a part and 
only a part, and that nothing could be more unreasonable 
than for him to neglect study and be noisy and mis- 
chievous, thus keeping the teacher's attention on him- 
self and disturbing the rest of the scholars in their 
duty. Thomas is a healthy, lively boy, who likes to 
play and have a good time. But he wishes others to 
have a good time too ; such " good times " in school 
mean good order, and good lessons, and teachers and 
scholars all pleased and busy with the good work to be 
done by them, in learning and teaching. That is a good 
time anywhere, when the thing to do in that time and 
place is done finely and thoroughly. Now Thomas plays 
with all his soul in play-hours, and in the place and 
time for study he studies with all his might. He has a 
strong impulse to play too long, or in school, but he 
resists it — as we can resist any impulse in ourselves if 
we will — and conquers it, and the better impulse wins 
the day. 



48 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

We have had much to say about obedience to law 
as the foundation of all good human life. But we all 
have inclinations at times to prefer our own wishes or 
desires, however unreasonable they may be, to the obe- 
dience which though reasonable seems hard and dis- 
agreeable. We are so made that there is often this con- 
flict between what we know to be the proper thing for 
us to do and the thing we wish at the time to do. We 
must, therefore, learn to control ourselves ; we must 
practise the very necessary art of making ourselves do 
what is disagreeable, if it seems to us the right and 
reasonable thing, until it shall come to be not only right 
and reasonable but also agreeable to us, for this very 
cause. This is precisely what we often have to do in 
other matters than our dealings with human beings. 

We need training in the art of conduct as in every 
other art. Mary has musical talent and she is anxious 
to learn to play the piano-forte. So her father buys one 
and engages a teacher for her ; and the first lessons are 
very pleasant. But after a time, Mary gets tired of 
scales and exercises, and begins to think that it is not 
"worth while." She is discouraged and talks of giving 
up. But others tell her, she can see herself, that ex- 
cellence in piano-playing comes to most persons only 
through diligence and patience in mastering the ele- 
ments. She is soon encouraged to find that she can 
play simple exercises without keeping her eyes on the 
keys ; after a time she can play easy tunes without 
notes, and, if she continues to persevere, she comes in 
time to do almost automatically what was once very 
difficult for her. She is amused now at the recollection 
that she ever found a certain exercise, hard to play. 
Mary has fully complied with the conditions of excel- 
lence in music. She controls her desire to give up and 
try something easier. She perseveres and conquers the 
difficulties, one by one. By " sticking to it " and prac- 
tising and practising, she establishes what are called. 



SELF-CONTBOL. 49 

" lines of least resistance ; " her ringers move swiftly 
over the keys, she acquires skill in her art, and she finds 
future progress much easier in proportion, as her self- 
control increases. 

With all our different characters and dispositions few 
of us find it easy to do always the thing that we know 
to be right. We must, then, if we are to acquire the 
fine art of good conduct, learn self-control, and this im- 
plies patience and perseverance. By practice we shall 
establish " lines of least resistance " in our relations 
with others, over which we shall in time move with an 
ease and freedom that will surprise ourselves. 

Self-control is necessary to obedience to the laws of 
conduct. But it is not necessary that we should have a 
sense of effort and difficulty in doing what we call 
"right," in order that it should be truly right or " vir- 
tuous " in us. On the contrary, the ideal we should al- 
ways hold before ourselves is to make the doing of right 
deeds, the living of a virtuous life, the easiest and 
most agreeable thing to do. In the beginning, we 
have pains and trouble in making our habits better, 
until they are right and good in certain respects ; then 
habit slowly becomes a second nature, taking the place 
of the former untrained and undisciplined nature, 1 until, 
at last, it is " as easy now for the heart to be true As for 
grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 'T is the natural 
way of living." We need to practise self-control until 
the self is altered for the better — we can alter it — 
and then, when it is changed for the better, it may well 
have free play in that direction. A hasty-tempered man 
might find it hard at first to wait and count a hundred, 
according to the old rule, before he speaks, when he 
feels himself getting angry. But in time he should be 
strong enough, from long resistance to his native im- 
pulse, to trust himself to speak at once. 

1 " Habit a second nature," said the great Duke of Wellington, 
" it is ten times nature ! ' ' 



50 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

In every art the acquirement of skill and excellence 
implies discipline, and discipline means patience and 
self-control. Most of all in the art of arts, at which we 
are continually practising, the art of a noble life, is the 
desire of discipline "the very true beginning of wis- 
dom." On the other hand, it is the height of unwisdom 
to ask continually : " Why should I control myself ? 
TVhy should I not have my own way ? " This would not 
be so foolish if you were the only person in the world, 
and there were no one else to be affected by your actions. 
In that case, you might properly do many things which 
it is not right or reasonable for you to do in a world 
where you are surrounded by many other human beings. 
These other persons you expect to be considerate of the 
fact that you yourself exist, and that they owe you 
something, as another human being, in all their rela- 
tions with you. When you are ready to say that others 
owe you nothing, then you can ask why you owe it 
to them to control yourself, to abate your extravagant 
claims, and to be content with your reasonable portion 
of good things. Each of these other persons has a 
"self" also, which he is bound to preserve and care 
for, according to the instinct of nature and the teach- 
ings of reason. 

Very many things which are necessary to our life, to 
our progress, and to our comfort, we can do for ourselves 
better than any one else, or perhaps any number of 
other persons can do them for us. It is natural and 
right that we should " assert ourselves," and claim what 
is needful for living our human life. Nature makes 
this instinct of self-regard exceedingly strong in each 
one of us, and it is one of two or three fundamental 
forces in directing all our actions. Man is' chiefly dis- 
tinguished from the lower animals, however, in that he 
can reason to himself about this instinct of self-preser- 
vation and self-regard and the great instinct of regard 
for others (sympathy) which is just as much a part of 



SELF-CONTROL. 51 

our nature, and can determine what is the proper place 
for each motive in his actions. 

Constant experience teaches us very plainly how much 
stronger the natural instinct of self-assertion is than the 
other instincts which lead us to forget self in thinking 
of others. So we learn that the essential spirit of 
morality is self-control by reason. Morality holds 
us back from making a self-assertion that is " exorbi- 
tant " (jL e., which takes us out of our proper " orbit ") ; 
it gives us a more moderate notion of what others 
should do for us (i. e., of what we call our rights), and 
it stimulates us to do what we ought, what we really 
owe to others (i. e., our duties). There is no rule for 
determining rights and duties but the rule of reason, as 
in all other human affairs. Men, however, have been 
living in social relations so many generations that they 
have found out a great many facts and laws of conduct. 
They have acquired a large amount of practical wisdom 
and of moral " faculty " which has been handed down 
from one generation to another, each increasing it. 

A new person coming into the world does not need, 
therefore, to try all kinds of actions to find out which 
are hurtful and which are helpful to himself and others. 
But he should be docile, i. e., teachable, and willing to 
learn what things have already been found good to do, 
and what things have been found to be bad. To be 
docile is to have such self-control that we shall not set 
ourselves up as wiser than everybody else. We need to 
live long before we can do wisely in contradicting or 
correcting any of the simple practical rules for common 
conduct which men ages ago found out, and which mil- 
lions of human beings have learned are reasonable by 
trying to live according to them. These moral precepts 
are working laws of human conduct, which are gradu- 
ally extended and made definite in the long course of 
human experience. It has thus become natural for civ- 
ilized men to live obedient to moral law as to physical 



52 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

law. But not all men are civilized. No one is really 
civilized until he has learned to know himself, in some 
degree at least, as a part of the social order, and to fit 
himself by self-control for his place in this order. 

We are not called upon by reason to sacrifice our- 
selves in the common relations of social life, but rather 
to preserve ourselves wisely, and to make the best 
and the most of ourselves, keeping in view the good 
of each and the good of all. Human society is made up 
of as many " selves " as there are persons in it. Each of 
these selves appears, usually, to itself to be much more 
important and deserving of consideration than it does 
to others. This is a common fact of human nature, 
which is seen to be justifiable in reason when we con- 
sider the further fact that each one of these " selves " 
has the chief responsibility of caring for itself. There 
is, therefore, a very proper " selfhood "■ l for each and 
every human being ; his self-existing, with no need of 
excuse, is a most important fact to him. 

We need to cultivate and develop ourselves ; self- 
culture is both an end in itself and an essential means 
to helping others most effectually. As a part of this 
development and cultivation, the control of self by our 
knowledge, by our reason, by our social instinct, by 
sympathy, by the Golden Eule, is of the first impor- 
tance. We do not think of standing on our heads as a 
regular exercise or as a common position. Our feet are 
the parts of our body meant to walk with, and to stand 
on. So our minds are given us to use in discovering 
the laws of human life ; and the laws of right conduct, 
when once discovered, are no less natural than the prac- 
tice of walking on our feet. The general moral law of 
self-control means that any and every force in us — of 

1 Just as we say " childhood ' ' and " manhood," not blaming or 
praising the child, because it is a child, or the man because he is a 
man Dr. Dewey was wise in advising the restoration of the word to 
present usage. 



SELF-CONTROL. 53 

feeling or passion or temper — must be kept obedient to 
our enlightened reason and our disciplined will. Reason 
teaches us, for example, to prefer a larger to a smaller 
good, and to subordinate the brief present to the long 
future. Education, therefore, is better for a child than 
unlimited play, because it will outgrow the desire for 
play, and its childhood will give place to manhood, and 
this should be instructed and capable, as only years of 
previous education can make it. 



NOTES. 

Self-control should be taken to mean restraint of the lower 
self, — the animal, sensual, anti-social instincts and tendencies. 
The higher, nobler self, that finds its true life in the life of all, 
is thus free to emerge and assert itself with power. The higher 
self is to take the lower self in hand, and show its own ability 
to shape thought, feeling, and action toward an ideal excellence. 
(See the treatment of the Will by the various writers on ethics, 
such as Noah Porter in his Elements of Moral Science.) In this 
process the lower self is not sacrificed, but simply confined to its 
own sphere. An admirable discussion of this point is the lecture 
on Selfhood and Sacrifice, by Rev. Dr. Orville Dewey, in the vol- 
ume entitled Christianity and Modern Thought 

The formation of good habits is the obvious step toward 
diminishing the difficulty of self-control. As Walter Bagehot 
says, the first step in the moral culture of the child is "to 
secrete a crust of custom." J. F. Clarke in his Self-Culture is 
especially good on the education of the will. " Self-reliance, 
self-restraint, self-control, self-direction, these constitute an edu- 
cated will. . . . Freedom is self-direction. The two diseases of 
the will are indecision, or weakness of will, and wilfulness, or 
unregulated strength of will. The cure for both is self-direction, 
according to conscience and truth." 

Read The Conqueror's Grave, by Bryant ; " Prune thou thy 
words," by J. H. Newman ; " How happy is he born or taught," 
by Sir Henry Wotton ; Emerson's lines, closing, 

" When Duty whispers low, ' Thou must,' 
The youth replies, ' I can ; ' " 



54 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

and Matthew Arnold's Morality, 

" Tasks in hours of insight willed 
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled." 

He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a 
city; so the lives of famous inventors teach us, as they bend all 
things to serve their aim. See Mr. Smiles's Lives of the Ste- 
phensons, Men of Invention and Industry, and Life and Labor, 
for instances of this truth. 



CHAPTER IV. 
TRUTHFULNESS. 

We have thus far been attending to the great facts 
that all human life is under law ; that one of the most 
important laws for man, if not the most important, is 
the moral law which springs from his very nature as a 
member of society ; and that we are obliged, as we are 
also able, to govern or control ourselves so as to live 
according to this law. We have been speaking of the 
actual world of nature and human society in which 
we all live. Now, a very large part of our life depends 
for its character and its results upon what we report to 
each other about what is or has been. We have by na- 
ture the faculty of speech by which we communicate with 
each other, and we have found out the arts of writing 
and printing. But we have not only eyes to see and 
ears to hear, and the organs of three other senses, which 
present to our minds the realities of the outward world ; 
we have also a faculty of imagination by which we can 
form to ourselves another view of things than that 
which our senses actually give, or have given us. We 
can think of things otherwise than as they are. We can 
use words to express our thoughts so that we shall in 
our speech re-present to others the realities we know, 
or we can alter them in our speech so that our words 
will not correspond to the facts as we think them to be. 

We call it speaking the truth when any one de- 
scribes things as they, in fact, appear to him to be, or 
relates events as his senses showed them to him. He 
may be mistaken, as his senses or his judgment may 
have misled him ; but so long as he intends to re-pre- 



56 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

sent fact, he is truthful On the contrary, when, for 
any cause, he means to speak, and does speak, of things 
or events as they were not, or are not, then he is false. 
He intends to deceive us, whether he succeeds in doing 
so or not. The first and natural use of words, or hu- 
man speech, is to represent reality. We are in a very 
high degree dependent on each other's words as to what 
the facts of life are. A large part, probably the largest 
part, of our own words and actions are based upon our 
confidence that other human beings have spoken to us 
the truth. 

In courts of law the witness who is called upon to 
state what he knows about the case, swears, or affirms, 
that he will tell " the truth, the whole truth, and no- 
thing but the truth. " In ordinary life we go upon the 
assumption, generally, that the words we hear corre- 
spond to fact, that people are re-presenting to us the 
facts as they are, or have been ; and we act in accord- 
ance with this confidence, We must live in an actual 
world : we cannot live in an imaginary world, as it has 
no reality. All our own words that are based upon a 
falsehood told us by another, instead of a truth, have 
no foundation in fact, and must, therefore, count for 
little or nothing in the end. All that we do, thinking 
and believing that a certain other thing has been done, 
because we have been told so, when, in fact, it has not 
been done, lacks proper foundation, and is likely to 
come to naught, or to work harm ins bead of good. A 
true report of facts is, then, the first condition of satis- 
factory intercourse of human beings with one another. 
They must have a substantial confidence in one an- 
other's general truthfulness. Otherwise, they can have 
little dealing with one another. All human^ undertak- 
ings must finally rest upon reality, and correspond to 
fact ; every departure from fact means for all men loss 
and harm. 

Hence arises the prime necessity of truthfulness in 



TRUTHFULNESS. 57 

human society. In the great majority of cases, men 
naturally tell the truth ; i. e., whether it is to their own 
advantage or not, they re-present things in speech as 
these have appeared to them in reality. If this were 
not the case, social life, in which men inevitably depend 
upon one another for information and guidance, would 
be impossible. But, on the other hand, it is very much 
easier to say a false 'word, thus misrepresenting fact 
in some degree, than it is to do any one of a hundred 
"wrong acts. More than this : when we have con- 
sciously done a bad deed, we usually wish to avoid the 
consequences of it, and we naturally try to escape them 
by lying about it. So offences against truth are the 
common attendants of wrong actions of a thousand 
kinds. " Vice has many tools," it is said ; " but a lie is 
the handle that fits them all." 

We wish our clocks and watches to give us the true 
time — the hour and minute that actually are, as distin- 
guished from those that have been and those to come. 
So we ask that other human beings shall give us " true 
time " in what they say to us. If the clock is an hour 
slow or half an hour fast, we cannot blame the clock, 
for it is only a machine, and cannot think, or be said to 
have any intention to deceive us so that we shall miss 
a train or be late at school : we properly find fault with 
the maker of the clock or with the jeweller who should 
have regulated it so that it would keep good time. But 
boys and girls and men and women think ; they have an 
intention in what they say, and if they tell us what is 
not true, it is usually because they mean to mislead 
us. The result of their attempts to deceive us is that 
we lose that confidence which is the very first condition 
of human dealings. A boy who is found to have told a 
lie is often suspected afterward of deceiving even when 
he has no desire or intention of reporting anything but 
the exact fact. When a witness has taken an oath in a 
court of law to tell a the truth, the whole truth, and 



58 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

nothing but the truth/' and then tells a falsehood, 
known or afterwards found out to be such, he is pun- 
ished for perjury ; and if he should ever come into court 
again as a witness, everybody would be slow to believe 
him in an important matter. When a man has the 
reputation of being " the biggest liar in the town," what 
he says may very often be entirely true ; but people do 
not believe that a thing is so because he says it. He 
has forfeited the confidence of those who know him, 
and they will not accept his sole word as probably true. 
He is put out of the pale of society, so to speak, in 
proportion to the greatness of his offences against truth, 
and non-intercourse with him is practically declared. 

The person who tells a lie which is believed by people 
who have not yet " found him out," usually begins to 
think that a falsehood is a very easy substitute for the 
fact. A boy, for example, has disobeyed his father, who 
had commanded him not to go in swimming in the river 
because it is dangerous ; when he is asked if he has 
been in the river, he boldly answers, " No." Thus he 
adds to his first fault a second. As his father believes 
him, John is quite likely to try the same plan again, 
until, at last, he is found out. Then his father punishes 
him for the disobedience and the lie; but the worst 
part of the whole punishment to John, if he is a self- 
respecting boy, is that his father and mother will proba- 
bly not take his word as sufficient, in any matter of 
consequence, for some time to come, until he has shown 
that he is again to be trusted fully. But for John, or 
any one else, to deceive thus, and then ask people to 
treat him afterward as if he had always spoken the 
truth, is most unreasonable. If John were a man in a 
position of responsibility and were detected -in lying, he 
would probably be turned out of his place at once, be- 
cause the truth is one of the first things he owes his 
employer. When "thought is speech and speech is 
truth " we can trust each other and join together with 



TRUTHFULNESS. 59 

confidence in all kinds of undertakings, great or small. 
But when the act is one thing and the word is another 
different or contrary thing, we stand apart from such a 
man in suspicion and distrust, and we refuse to work 
with him, since truthfulness is of the very essence of 
voluntary association in all kinds of works. 

Our house of life must be built upon fact, or it will 
fall. When we repeat " Great is truth and mighty 
above all things/' we mean to say that the facts of this 
universe are far stronger than any mistaken or false re- 
port of them which any one may make. They will 
come to the light at last, since the mind of man is evi- 
dently intended to know the truth, i. e., the reality of 
things. Any one, therefore, who tells us the truth, in 
small matters or in large, enables us so far to bring our 
life into harmony with the laws of all life in general 
and of human life in society in particular. He clears 
the way so that we can walk in it, if we will. But if 
another human being deceives us, we are led off from 
the right road, as when some one misdirects a traveller, 
and he goes the opposite way to that which he desires 
to take, or in any other direction which is wrong for 
him, and it costs him much time and trouble to find the 
right way. 

To tell the truth is, then, the first of services we 
can render one another in the great association which 
we call human society. Knowledge must come before 
action. But as we can know from our own observation 
but a very small part of all that we need to know, we 
mainly depend upon others' report of facts and events 
in order to act wisely and properly. Lord Bacon said : 
" No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the 
vantage ground of truth." This is, indeed, the case. 
When we tell the truth we are in harmony and union 
with the whole universe so far ; but when we tell a lie 
we leave the world of reality, the only world that is, and 
enter a world of unreality which we have, for a brief 



60 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

time, created, so to speak, out of nothing, and which has 
only the substance of nothingness in it. We may add lie 
to lie in order to make a consistent story and gain belief 
for the time. But the facts are against us : we know 
it ourselves. It is not as if we had simply made a mis- 
take. We have deliberately directed our fellow-beings 
wrong on the way of life ; we have given them incorrect 
time, and we have tried to raise around them a false 
world. They cannot fail to discover the deception 
sometime. Indignation, with a long loss of confidence ; 
constant suspicion, even when we are telling the truth, 
and great difficulty in all their dealings with us, are 
the natural and inevitable results of such lying. 

The person who lies gives way to a temptation too 
strong for him at the time. A boy who has broken a 
pane of glass in a window, while playing ball, is afraid 
that he will be punished for it, and so he declares, when 
he is questioned about the matter, that he did not break 
it. If he knew and realized how important truthfulness 
is as a constant habit in all our relations with one an- 
other, he would have preferred to be punished rather 
than tell a lie, which would deserve a severer punish- 
ment than the original fault. According to the law of 
habit, with each time that one tells a lie it becomes 
easier for him to lie again. With each time that he 
conquers the temptation it is so much the easier to tell 
the truth again. 

It is just as important for us that we should respect 
ourselves as that others should respect us. The only 
way in which we can maintain our self-respect in this 
matter is by telling the truth ; as Chaucer's Franklin 
says, " Truth is the highest thing that man may^ keep," 
and when he keeps it, he has a justifiable' pride in the 
fact and in himself. Knowing how hard it is sometimes 
for children to tell the exact facts, when they have done 
wrong, teachers and parents should always try to make 
them feel that an offence against truthfulness is a great 



TRUTHFULNESS. 61 

weakener of proper self-respect and that it is often a 
worse fault than the original wrong-doing. 

We should speak the whole truth. Often, by keep- 
ing back, purposely, some essential fact or circumstance, 
we can produce an impression on another person's mind 
directly the opposite of that which we are sure he would 
probably receive if we told this fact or circumstance. 
Invariably, we should tell those who have a right to 
know the facts of a matter from us, everything impor- 
tant that we know about it ; then, if they get a mistaken 
impression, it is not our fault. We owe one another the 
whole truth simply as members of the human society 
in which all are dependent on exact knowledge as a pre- 
cedent to wise and right action. 

We should not tell more than the truth by exagger- 
ating the facts or by inventing circumstances to make 
our talk interesting. When the exaggeration is plainly 
understood, it does not deceive. But we should not 
allow ourselves to fall into a habit of magnifying things 
as though we were always looking through a microscope. 
If a boy has seen two dogs fighting, he should not de- 
clare, " Oh, mother ! there were a thousand dogs fight- 
ing in front of our house this morning.'' We should be 
satisfied to report things as they have been or now are, 
neither more nor less. This is the simplest course for 
every one to take and to keep. 

Duplicity, which is another name for falsehood in 
action, means " doubleness." A person who desires to 
deceive others has " to keep up appearances," as to cer- 
tain matters about which he lies. In all other respects, 
he may be willing and even anxious to let the facts of 
his life be manifest. Now, to keep up appearances, to 
seem to be what one is not, is a far harder thing to do 
than to live according to fact, and let the appearances 
be simply those of the facts. Duplicity is keeping up 
two courses of conduct, side by side, that do not agree 
with each other. We do not deceive ourselves by the 



62 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

lies we tell, so we must act in large degree as if these 
are lies. But we wish to deceive others by these false 
reports, and in order to deceive them thoroughly we have 
to act as if we had spoken the truth. The farther we 
go in such a course of conduct, the harder it is likely to 
become ; so a frank confession of all our untruthfulness 
is, at last, often a great relief to us. We come back 
with pleasure to simple fact and a life that is open and 
straightforward as the natural and right way of living. 
We have found 

" What a tangled web we weave 
When first we practise to deceive." 

We must throughout life take home to ourselves this 
lesson, that Truth is meant for man and man is meant 
for Truth. Language is our natural means for telling 
facts to one another, so that we may know the real world 
in which we actually live, and do wisely, kindly, and 
rightly in it. We must obey the laws of nature ; we 
must control our actions so as to make them accord with 
these laws ; but the most fundamental duty of men in 
all their dealings with one another is to represent things 
as they are, in nature, in society, in life. Truth is the 
first necessity of wise living, and out of truth comes 
the only beauty that is permanent. The good rests upon 
the true. All this means that we should recognize the 
facts and laws of our human existence and represent 
them to others as they are, as the only sure and lasting 
foundation for a good and happy life. 



NOTES. 



The teacher will find some help, in treating the duty of ve- 
racity, in the sections or chapters of most of the standard books 
on ethics which pay attention to practice in any degree. Among 
the older works, Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy has rarely 
been surpassed for its concrete and sagacious treatment of prac- 



TRUTHFULNESS. 63 

tical morals : the chapter on Lies (Book III. chap, xv.) is inter- 
esting. Other works which give matter of value in this direction 
are Prof essor Noah Porter's Elements of Moral Science (Part II. 
chap. x. p. 416) ; John Bascom's Science of Duty, pp. 158-166 ; 
Mark Hopkins's Law of Love (on the " right to truth "), pp. 199- 
201 ; A. Bierbower's The Virtues and their Reasons ; and Paul 
Janet's Elements of Morals, translated by Mrs. C. R. Corson. 

As a specimen of illustrative reading, take this from S. Smiles's 
Character (p. 214 ; the chapter on Duty-Truthfulness) concern- 
ing the great educator, Thomas Arnold of Rugby. " There was 
no virtue that Dr. Arnold labored more sedulously to instil into 
young men than the virtue of truthfulness, as being the manliest 
of virtues, as indeed the very basis of all true manliness. He 
designated truthfulness as * moral transparency,' and he valued 
it more highly than any other quality. When lying was de- 
tected, he treated it as a great moral offenc.e ; but when a pupil 
made an assertion, he accepted it with confidence. * If you say 
so, that is quite enough ; of course, I believe your word.' By 
thus trusting and believing them, he educated the young in truth- 
fulness ; the boys at length coming to say to one another : * It 's 
a shame to tell Arnold a lie, — he always believes one.' " (Life 
of Arnold, i. 94.) 

There is an apposite story of Arthur Bonnicastle in Dr. J. G. 
Holland's novel of that name (p. 88). The story of Washing- 
ton and the cherry tree belongs to myth, not to history, as one 
may see in Lodge's Life of Washington (American Statesmen 
Series) ; avoid it, as much as the myth of William Tell in teach- 
ing patriotism. Books of the style of Miss C. M. Yonge's 
Golden Deeds, Mr. S. Smiles's Character and Self-Help, and 
William Matthew's Getting on in the World, will afford pertinent 
anecdotes and stories of truth-telling and its opposite. 

As to the causes of lying by children, the following points are 
useful, from an instructive paper by President G. Stanley Hall 
of Clark University. Aided by a number of teachers, he col- 
lected very many data as to the character of children's lies and 
the occasion of their development. He finds, that with children, 
as with primitive people, the enormity of the lie depends largely 
upon whom it is told to. A great many children have persisted 
in lies until asked, "Would you tell that to your mother ?" 
Then they have confessed the falsehood. A lie to a teacher who 
is liked stands upon an entirely different moral basis from a lie 



64 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

to a teacher who is not liked. Lies to help people are generally 
applauded by children. One teacher reported to President Hall 
that she had been considerably saddened because her class of 
thirteen-year-old children would not apply the term " lie " to the 
action of the French girl who, when on her way to execution, in 
the days of the Commune, met her betrothed, and, to save him 
from supposed complicity, responded to his agonized appeals, 
" Sir, I never knew you." To the minds of the children the 
falsehood was glorified by the love. 

President Hall sensibly recognizes that a great many chil- 
dren's lies spring from one of the most valuable and healthful of 
mental instincts. Children live in their imagination. The finest 
geniuses have shown this " play instinct " most strongly. The 
children who have this type of imagination most strongly devel- 
oped are often the dullest at schools. 

Exaggeration is a mild species of offence against truth, but 
children may be taught to respect things as they are ; they 
should certainly be taught that it requires more care and thought 
to relate an event just as it happened, and that such an account 
is more creditable to them, than to indulge in exaggeration of 
any kind. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes says : " I often tell Mrs. 
Professor that one of her ' I think it is so's ' is worth a dozen of 
another person's 'I know it is so's.' " We should not exaggerate 
the degree of certainty in our own minds concerning what we say 
or believe ; there is such a very good thing as " the rhetoric of 
understatement." Truth is stranger than fiction, and if held to 
consistently, it will yield more variety and charm. If a child is 
evidently imaginative the teacher should be especially careful to 
keep it to the real world (outside of its games and story-telling, 
understood to be such), which it should be taught to respect 
and distinguish as the world we have to live in, where we need 
veracity more than imagination. 

Fear is another great cause of lying with children, when they 
have committed some offence. The parent or the teacher should 
not offer to remit the proper punishment for this offence in case 
the child will tell the truth ; but he should, as a rule, make the 
punishment more severe for the lie than for the original trans- 
gression, and the two penalties should be kept distinct. The 
teacher may well say : " If you did such and such a wrong thing, 
I shall have to punish you for it, even if you tell me frankly 
that you did it ; but if you lie about it I will give you a harder 



NOTES. 65 

punishment, in addition, because of the lie." But the tempta- 
tion to lying should be made as slight as possible by the teacher. 

Appeal to the sense of honor, as in Dr. Arnold's case, and to the 
feeling of self-respect ; show that duplicity (doubleness) is a hard 
part to play, that the liar " should have a good memory," as one 
lie breeds others which must be told, to be consistent, and all of 
these must be remembered ; that the facts are all the time 
troubling, and will finally triumph over, the liar, who gets into 
worse and worse difficulties continually, while he who is plainly 
telling the truth all the time has no such difficulties. 

The loss of confidence which a lie, suspected or detected, 
brings about should be brought home to the child who has told 
an untruth, by declining to believe him the next time he makes 
an assertion at all doubtful, and telling him the reason why you 
must, inevitably, so do ; ask him how he likes the feeling of 
having his word doubted, how he felt when he has been deceived 
himself (" put yourself in his place ") and how he felt when he 
saw he had deceived a person to whom he owed the truth in 
proper gratitude and honor. Be sure to give all due weight to 
the intention of the child in telling a falsehood, if you can get at 
it ; anything else than a plain intention to deceive should make 
him a subject of enlightenment rather than of punishment. But 
casuistry should be avoided in the general talks to children. 
There is little profit in discussing with them the question if one 
may properly tell a lie to a drunkard or an insane person, or in 
order to save life. Such debate should be left to older persons 
who will not be so apt to become confused in their minds. 
Nature will teach a person what to do in such a case better than 
any amount of discussion. 

Remember how many a child that shamelessly reproduced the 
immorality of a savage or barbarian in its frequent lies has be- 
come thoroughly truthful when grown up ; the lively, mendacious 
Greek is thus often outgrown in time, and the truth-loving 
Teuton emerges and remains. 



V 



CHAPTER V. 
THE LAW OF JUSTICE. 

As we all live under the moral law, each of us has a 
right to the protection of that law. The moral law is 
written down in part in the laws of the land, and we 
see in every civilized country what are called " courts 
of justice." If any man thinks that he has been 
wronged by another who has taken away his property, 
he " goes to law," as we say, about it. The case is tried 
before a judge and a jury. The judge tells the jury 
what the law of the land bearing on the suit is, and the 
jury decides upon the facts of the case, whether it comes 
under the law or not. This is one way of getting jus- 
tice done. There are many laws about property and 
other rights ; there are many judges and lawyers and 
legislators, making or discussing or determining the 
written law. The object of all these arrangements and 
institutions is that every man may have his own, that 
which properly belongs to him. 

As we all very well know, a large part of the moral 
law is not written down in the statute-book and is not 
executed by the courts, but is left to public opinion or 
to private persons to enforce, because it can be enforced 
in this way better than by the judges. However it is 
applied, justice always means giving every person his 
due ; i. e., what others owe him because he is a human 
being in society. Speaking generally, he himself owes 
the same things to other people as they owe to him, 
since all human beings are very much alike. What he 
calls his " rights " are the " duties " of others to him, 
and their " rights " measure his " duties " to them. 



THE LAW OF JUSTICE. 67 

We must rule out, at once, from all our thoughts of 
moral law, the notion that we ourselves have more 
rights than other persons have, or that we have fewer 
duties. One and the same great law of human life is 
over us all ; it makes our duties equal to our rights. 
In the great whole of human society, each person is a 
part. The whole has duties to each part : each part 
has duties to all the other parts and to the whole. This 
is the universal law for entire mankind. Practice of 
the obedience and the self-control of which we have 
had so much to say results in justice to all men. " The 
just " is the fair and due part of each and every person. 

Meum et tuum : we know what this Latin phrase 
means, " mine and thine ; " the law of mine and thine 
is that you shall have what belongs to you, no more 
and no less, and that I shall have what belongs to me, 
no more and no less. Honesty is a very important 
part of justice, and honesty is respect for the property 
of others. To take what is another's property, know- 
ingly, is to work injustice. We may do this by vio- 
lence, while he protests or tries to prevent us. In this 
case we are setting the law of the land openly at defi- 
ance, and the policeman or the constable or the sheriff 
will come and arrest us. We shall be taken before the 
court, and if we are proved to be guilty, we shall be 
severely punished, because it is for the interest of all 
men that the rights of property should be respected, and 
because private violence is contrary to all law except 
the rude law of the strongest, under which savages live. 
Reason and right cannot prevail unless violence be 
punished. 

But if we take away another person's property with- 
out his knowledge, — this we call " stealing," — we are 
also breaking the great law of meum et tuum, and it is 
none the less wrong if we are not found out and pun- 
ished. People often dispute about property, different 
persons thinking that they have a clear right to the 



68 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

ownership of the same thing, — a house, let us say, or 
a piece of land. In such a case they should let the 
courts, or some other competent authority, decide for 
them, and both parties should respect the decision after- 
wards. But when we know that a thing does not be- 
long to us, we owe it not only to the person who owns 
the property, but also to the whole community in which 
we live, to regard his right, and we should not try to 
cheat or defraud him of it, any more than we should 
take it away from him by force. There is enough in 
the world for all, if each will take only his part. So 
mankind thinks, and tries, therefore, to set up " even- 
handed justice," as Shakespeare calls it. Enjoy what 
is your own, and let others enjoy their own. Such a 
rule would keep us from robbery or theft of any kind. 
If we are just to others, again, we shall not take or keep 
back any part of what belongs to them since they have 
paid for it. The grocer must weigh out sixteen ounces 
to the pound, as he is paid for the pound ; the dry-goods 
clerk should give thirty-six inches to the yard, for 
otherwise he is keeping back what is another's. 

Justice is opposed to partiality or favoritism, as well ; 
this means giving to one person more than his share, 
as when a teacher is kind to one scholar and severe to 
another, both being equally deserving. All the pupils 
in the school have a right to the teacher's care and help, 
just as the teacher has a right to obedience and atten- 
tion from all the scholars alike. The upright judge in 
the court room makes no distinction in his rulings be- 
cause one man is rich and another man is poor, or 
because one is white and the other is black. He is no 
" respecter of persons " : it is his duty to apply princi- 
ples to cases and not to let his personal likings or dis- 
likings influence his action. 

The old Romans represented the goddess of justice 
by the statue of a woman blindfolded, holding a pair 
of scales in one hand and a sword in the other. The 



THE LAW OF JUSTICE. 69 

bandage indicated that the just man should be blind to 
every consideration which would lead him to favor one 
person at the expense of another. The scales showed 
that the just man weighs out his part to each, that he 
may be fair to all. In our homes we should all weigh 
in our minds the parts we owe to father and mother, to 
brothers and sisters, and to other relatives there, and 
give them freely and heartily, full measure and ample 
weight. So at school, so on the street, so in business 
and so in all our relations with other human beings, 
we should be just, first of all. In order to do justly we 
have to recognize the truths we have thus far been 
learning : that we are all under one law ; that we all owe 
it obedience ; that we all ought to control our selfish 
dispositions, which tend to become the very opposite of 
reason and justice ; and that we all owe one another the 
whole truth. As we go along further in our study of 
morality, we shall see that very much more of right 
conduct might be included under the name of justice : 
even kindness might be called a part of it. But let us 
think of it now as the giving his fair and equal part to 
every person, whether he is near enough to us for us 
also to be kind, or not. 

As each human being is a member of society, each 
has a just claim to his fair part of the good things of 
the world. What we call " self " has its rights as well 
as its duties, and it is not " selfishness " for any one to 
desire to have that which in reason belongs to him. 
" Selfishness " means asking or taking too much, 
more than one's proper share. We need a word to sig- 
nify without any shade of blame the existence and 
action of the self, that is, of each individual person, in 
its right and reasonable degree. Such a word, as has 
been said in a previous chapter, is the old English term 
" selfhood." Like boyhood, manhood, womanhood, and 
other similar words, it means simply the natural condi- 
tion of each human being, existing as a person of the 



70 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

first and nearest importance in his own eyes. Nature 
has given him consciousness of himself, and he can 
never take the same attitude toward himself as he holds 
toward every other human being. He views his self 
from within, but all other persons he sees, and must 
see, from without. The preservation of this self from 
danger or disease or death, and the maintenance of it in 
health and comfort are, by a law of nature, peculiarly 
the business of each one of us, more especially when we 
have reached our full size and strength. Each person 
can, on the whole, provide for himself better than others 
can provide for him. Self-help is thoroughly natural, 
and it is usually the best kind of help. The devel- 
opment of all one's powers of body and mind is pecul- 
iarly one's own duty and privilege. There is nothing 
selfish or wrong in any one's asking for what is, reason- 
ably, his share. 

We become selfish, i. e., we carry our natural liking 
for ourselves too far, when we take away from others, 
directly or indirectly, what is theirs, to make it, wrong- 
fully, our own property. As we all know, selfishness, 
the claiming or taking too much, is the most common 
form of all wrong-doing. It might be said that it is 
even the foundation or source of almost all wrong- 
doing. When we think very highly of our own merits 
and very little of the rights of others, we really act as 
if human society revolved around us as its centre ; we 
are virtually claiming that we cannot have too much, or 
others too little, the main matter being that we shall be 
satisfied. This is making the same kind of mistake 
that men used to make when they imagined that the 
sun and the planets and all the stars of heaven revolved 
around this little earth of ours as their centre. It was 
not so ; it is not so, and it cannot be made to be so by any 
amount of talking or doing on our part. So when any 
man or woman, or boy or girl, acts as if the whole fam- 
ily, or the whole school, or the whole neighborhood, or 



THE LAW OF JUSTICE. 71 

town or city or state or nation revolves, or should re- 
volve, around his or her own convenience or comfort or 
happiness, the same great mistake is made. All these 
associations of human beings are intended for the good 
of each and all together ; every individual in any one 
of them must consult the welfare of all the others, as 
well as of himself, if the association is to continue in 
its natural and proper form, and if each is to receive 
from it the greatest degree of aid and comfort. 

The rule of justice, then, is, To each man his part. 
The way to bring this about is to act, in the first place, 
reasonably, to have a moderate and sensible notion of our 
own merits, to remember that each of us is only one of 
many, that each, indeed, is very important to himself, 
but that all these different selves are to live together in 
a common society under one and the same moral law. 
So apt are we all to exaggerate our own personal merits, 
so very apt to take more than what in reason belongs 
to us, that it becomes a necessity for us to make a con- 
stant allowance for this disposition. Very few persons, 
indeed, are likely to decide impartially in a case where 
their own interests are involved. Hence, it is a matter 
of the highest importance for us to realize our compara- 
tive inability to judge ourselves correctly. Our one re- 
source, if we must decide ourselves, is to try to obey 
the maxim, Put yourself in his place. When we 
have a dispute with another, or when it is a matter con- 
cerning meum et tuum, our safest, surest way is to obey 
the Golden Eule of conduct, "Do unto others as ye 
would that others should do unto you." 

Practically, this is the most important of all rules for 
governing our actions, because we are strongly inclined 
by nature to think of ourselves more highly than we 
ought to think, in reason. But if we once put ourselves, 
in imagination, in the other person's place, and ask our- 
selves how we should then like to have him do to us as 
we were purposing to do to him, we get a new light on 



72 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

the matter. It becomes plain to us, very often, that we 
should not at all like to be treated so by any one, and 
should consider such treatment unreasonable and un- 
fair. If, then, it would be so for us, why should it not 
be so for him ? The action remains the same, the dif- 
ference being only that the one who does the wrong 
and the one who suffers the wrong have changed places. 
Many persons declare, by their practice, that they hold 
the view of the African chief who was asked the differ- 
ence between right and wrong : " Eight," he answered, 
" is when I take away my neighbor's cattle ; wrong is 
when he takes away mine ! " But this, of course, is the 
very height of unreason : it amounts to denying that 
there is one and the same law binding upon all men 
alike, which makes stealing or robbery wrong because 
it is an offence against the social life. 

Justice and selfishness, therefore, are the two ex- 
tremes of action. The just man obeys the social, moral 
law ; the selfish man sets up his own will or pleasure as 
the only law that he wishes to obey. Liberty, the self- 
ish person thinks, is liberty to do as he pleases and take 
all he likes ; but he is very much mistaken. The real 
freedom for all men is liberty to act according to the 
Golden Eule. " Look out for number one " is the prin- 
ciple of the selfish man ; by " number one " he means 
himself. But, as a matter of fact, is he "number 
one " in respect to other matters than his relations to 
his fellow-men ? Was the sun made for him ? Will 
the rain come at his convenience ? Can he be idle and 
yet have all the rewards of industry ? Can he disre- 
gard any other law than the moral law with safety and 
profit to himself ? He surely cannot so do. He is no 
more " number one " before the moral law than he is 
before physical law. Moral law is law for the exist- 
ence and preservation and progress of human society, 
including all its individual members. Society is 
number one, and the moral law leaves no individual 



THE LAW OF JUSTICE. 73 

exempt from its equal operation and application. Hon- 
esty is "the best policy," therefore, because it is in 
harmony with the law of justice that includes all men 
without an exception. 

We are obliged to balance self and others in very 
many of our moral judgments and actions. We may be 
very sure that the two parties are meant by nature to 
work together in harmony for the welfare of all. We 
have instincts of justice as well as instincts of selfish- 
ness. Through our faculty of reason and our power of 
self-control, we can bring ourselves and others to a true 
selfhood which is just to all. Living in it we 
should be true to our own selves and false to no man. 
But to reach this end we need to think upon justice 
first. Self will probably assert itself fully enough, 
with most of us, without encouragement. When we 
think earnestly about our duties, to do them, other 
men will usually be quite ready to give us our rights 
with pleasure. But if we are very clamorous about 
" our rights," they will probably ask us first if we have 
discharged our own part. Not England alone, but all 
mankind " expects that every man will do his duty." 
A man who attends to all his duties will not talk pro- 
fusely about his rights. 



NOTES. 

"Justice satisfies everybody, and justice alone," says Emer- 
son. No word is more common to-day than " rights." See, for 
example, Herbert Spencer's Justice, with its chapters on the 
rights of women and children. But " duties " are, on the whole, 
much more profitable things to consider. Under justice comes 
honesty in all our dealings, as opposed to cheating, defrauding, 
stealing, adulteration of goods, and scamping work; the keeping 
of promises (" who sweareth to his hurt and change th not ") ; re- 
gard for the reputation of others; fair methods of making money 
(read J. Wolcott's poem, The Razor-Seller), and a hundred other 



74 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

topics. "Fair play" is an important aspect of justice easily 
brought into the view of boys and girls in school. Justice rests 
finally on the idea of equality, that all men have certain great 
rights as men, owed them by all other men as duties. " A man 's 
a man for a' that." Justice is the law of the business world, 
where kindness is not often mentioned. See Dole's American 
Citizen, part third, on " economic duties, or the rights and duties 
of business and money." "The most enviable of all titles," 
said Washington, — " the character of ' an honest man.' " " Jus- 
tice," said Aristotle, "more beautiful than the morning or the 
evening star." 



CHAPTER VI. 
THE LAW OP KINDNESS. 

In considering the full meaning of justice we have 
said that it might be so denned at last as to make it in- 
clude kindness, and we came to the Golden Eule as its 
best expression. But still it will probably seem to 
many that, so far, we have been making morality stern 
and forbidding, since we have had so much to say about 
law and obedience, — joyless words, most often ! We 
have taken this course deliberately, however, in order 
to think and reason clearly about this most important 
matter, — our conduct. But we should be omitting the 
view of conduct which changes its whole aspect, if we 
left out kindness. Justice we commonly regard as 
based upon deliberate thought, and we often say that 
one must not let his " feelings bias his judgment " on a 
question of right and wrong. Yet a very great portion 
of our life is the life of feeling. While we should not 
try to distinguish feeling and thought too closely, each 
has its large place. 

In all our conduct feeling has a great part to play. 
We only need to be sure that the feeling is rightly di- 
rected and not immoderate in its degree. This being 
so, the more strongly we feel in matters of conduct the 
better, for feeling is the powerful force that makes 
action easy. If we " think clear and feel deep " we 
shall be most likely to " bear fruit well," and this is 
what every " friend of man desires." Now kindness 
is the word that stands preeminently for good feeling. 
In many of its uses it means as much or nearly as much 



76 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

as Love, and Love is the word that marks the strong- 
est possible feeling of personal attachment. We shall 
use the word Kindness in preference to Love in speak- 
ing of acts and feelings which concern many persons, 
because Love is, strictly, an intensely attractive feeling 
in persons very near each other, such as members of 
one family, intimate friends, or men and women who 
are " in love " with each other, as we say. The deep 
sympathy we call " love " continues strong*while it is 
confined to a few as its object ; but if we try to extend 
it to many persons it necessarily loses its intensity. 
As we are now considering feelings which are to be 
entertained toward the many, not toward the few, it is 
well to say " kindness/' and reserve "love" for the 
highest degree of affection. We will speak then of 
"the law of kindness," rather than of "the law of 
love," for the present. 

We all know that persons may, not rarely, deserve 
to be called just, and not deserve to be called kind. We 
often say that we respect a certain man because he does 
right habitually, but that we are not " attracted " to 
him. His conduct seems to us reasonable and just ; but 
it lacks that element of grace and charm which we 
imply when we say that another person is thoroughly 
kind — " kind-hearted " we generally phrase it, making 
an implied distinction between the " heart " and the 
" head." We must be very careful not to press this 
distinction too far, and make too much of it, for head 
and heart, not only literally but in this figurative use as 
well, are necessary parts of the same person ; they are 
not always or often to be set in sharp opposition. But 
there is a difference, plain to see, between good conduct 
that is simjAy just and good conduct that has "heart in 
it," i. e., is also " kind." Eeal kindness is not opposed to 
justice, but is above it as a superior degree in right con- 
duct. There is in kindness a notion of wholeness, 
immediateness and inspiration, which are more pleas- 



TEE LAW OF KINDNESS. 77 

ing and winning than the most careful, well calculated 
and deliberate justice can be by itself. 

Kindness, in fact, is the ideal of conduct toward 
the great body of our fellow-creatures. We have said 
in the last chapter that mankind has a natural instinct 
to be just, as well as an innate disposition to be selfish. 
It is also true, and a very important thing it is to bear 
in mind, that human nature has another instinct, to be 
kind. Sympathy (i. e., feeling with another, especially 
in his troubles) is precisely as natural to man as self- 
ishness ; sympathy is but another name for kindness. 
Selfhood and sympathy — feeling for one's self and feel- 
ing with and for others — are the two poles on which 
the world of personal conduct revolves. Each feeling 
is good and right in itself. T.he practical matter al- 
ways is to keep each in its proper place and confine it 
to its right degree. 

It may help us a little, at this critical poinf, to be just 
to self and to others if we consider closely the several 
meanings of the words " kind " and " kindness." 1 
" Kind " as a noun means (this is the original use of 
the word) the species, or class, to which a. being be- 
longs, as in the phrase " cattle after their kind." There 
are kinds of plants and kinds of animals. Among ani- 
mal beings, we belong to mankind. Each species or class 
has its peculiar nature, by reason of which we are led 
to call it a separate kind. This nature is, to all belong- 
ing to this kind, a necessary law of their action ; they 
simply must act according to their kind. " They fol- 
low the law of their kind," we say of all living animals. 
In connection with this nature we also use the words 
native propensity, disposition, character 5 these are all 
" natural," if they are involved in the " kind." It is 
the disposition of the tigress, for instance, to be cruel 

1 The teacher will observe that elsewhere I have preferred to dis- 
cuss in the notes the matter of etymologies — so interesting and im- 
portant in ethical reasoning — or to leave it untouched. 



78 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

to all animals but her own young : to them she is affec- 
tionate. Equally it is the character oi the dog to be 
fond of his master, and faithful to him. 1 So men and 
women have a certain general disposition or character 
because they all belong to mankind. For instance, you 
are " led by kind to admire your fellow-creature," says 
Dryden. 

The first use of "kind" as an adjective follows di- 
rectly from these meanings which we have been mention- 
ing. Whatever is " characteristic," L e., is a mark, of a 
species, whatever belongs to its nature, is natural or 
native to it, is therefore " kind " to it, in this primitive 
sense. ("Kind" and "kin," we have to remember, 
are etymologically the same word ; " kin " or " akin," 
and "kind," in this present sense, mean just the same.) 
" The kind taste " of an apple is the taste natural to an 
apple. The hay " kindest for sheep " is the hay that 
suits best their taste. "Kindly" is another form of 
"kind." "The kindly fruits of the earth" are the 
fruits which the earth naturally produces, i. e., after its 
kind. Next " kind " comes to mean especially, in the 
case of human beings, having the feelings that are com- 
mon and natural to the kind, the feelings which indi- 
cate, as well as stature or complexion, a community of 
descent. "A kindless villain," such as Hamlet calls the 
King, is one who acts contrary to the usual disposition 
of men, as the King did in murdering his own brother, 
Hamlet's father. "A little more than kin and less 
than kind," says Hamlet again, of the king, playing on 
the related words. The chorus in "Henry V.," ad- 
dressing England, exclaims : — 

" What mightst thou do 
Were all thy children kind and natural ; " 

that is, were they all true to their nature as English- 
men, with no traitors among them. 

1 " The bee," says Richard Rolle de Hampole, the old English 
writer, " has three kyndes ; ane es that sche is neuer ydell.' ' 



THE LAW OF KINDNESS. 79 

"Kind " as an adjective easily passes on to imply not 
only the feelings which show a common nature in hu- 
man beings, but in particular the feelings which show 
it most, the tender emotions. These prove the exist- 
ence, in a person, of a high degree of sympathy or com- 
passion (these two words are etymologically the same). 
" A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind/' " One 
touch of nature makes the whole world kin," i. e., it 
makes men feel alike, and tvith each other. When we 
are thoughtful about the fortunes of others, and dwell 
upon their lot so as to feel with them, " we become 
kindly with our kind," as Tennyson writes. In this 
way " kind," the adjective, reaches its present and usual 
meaning of tender and thoughtful for the welfare of 
others, in little things as well as in great. 

The history of " kindness," the noun, has followed the 
same course. In " Much Ado About Nothing " the un- 
cle of Claudio is reported by the messenger to have 
burst into tears when he heard how his nephew had 
distinguished himself in battle. " A kind overflow of 
kindness," says Leonato there, meaning, as he played 
upon the words, a natural overflow of tender feeling in 
one related, " akin," to Claudio. " Thy nature," says 
Lady Macbeth to her more humane spouse, " is too full 
o' the milk of human kindness," i. e., to kill the king. 
i Kindness," then, points to the great fact on which the 
moral law rests, that we are living with our kind. In 
this life together we are to think very carefully about 
the things which tend to make it profitable and pleasant 
to all. We must obey the laws of human nature which 
not only bring men together but are also continually 
operating to make the life together richer, fairer, and 
sweeter. This is the action of the law of kindness, 
the highest law of human society, of life with our kind. 

We are wont to say human society and human kind. 
Notice how this word "human" and the word "hu- 
mane " are related. A human being, an individual of 



80 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

the species Homo, would be partially described by the 
naturalist as an animal walking upright and having two 
hands, and a large brain with many convolutions. We 
are each of us a portion of such a " humanity," meaning 
physiological human kind, or the species If onto, through 
the possession of these physical characteristics. But 
" humanity " means, specifically, the thoughts and feel- 
ings proper, i. e. peculiar, to mankind, those which dis- 
tinguish us from the lower animals more plainly than 
do any bodily marks. 1 Most of all it stands for tender- 
ness toward our own kind, so that "humanity" and 
" kindness " are, to a certain degree, synonymous, the 
latter word having historically the somewhat wider 
meaning. "Humane" is the adjective corresponding 
to this last-mentioned sense of the noun " humanity." 
An old translator of Plutarch into English using the 
word in the earliest, literal sense, " of man," speaks of 
bearing " humane cases humanely," L e., bearing the lot 
of man like a man ! 

The change of signification which has come upon 
" kind " and " human " is one sign of the great fact of 
the progress of man. Universal history, indeed, is the 
record of man becoming more human, steadily working 
out the beastly and savage elements in his mingled 
nature, and giving ever freer exercise to those elements 
which are distinctively human. The humanization of 
man in society is the aim of all that we properly call 
civilization. Every step in this process, which takes 
mankind away from the beast and the savage, in thought, 
feeling, and action, is an improvement, since thus his 
special nature is working itself free. To humanize a 
race is to give it knowledge and art, a higher morality 
and gentler manners. Observe how this word "gentle," 
again, comes to mean what it does. A " gentle " person 

1 " Men that live according to the right rule and law of reason live 
but in their own kind, as beasts do in theirs," Sir Thomas Browne 
says. 



THE LAW OF KINDNESS, 81 

was originally one belonging to " a good family," one 
"well-born." Now people of family, the well-born, 
among their other advantages have more leisure than 
most persons to consider the smaller things of human 
intercourse — manners, that is, and the " minor morals " 
— and give them pleasing shape. Manners with these 
persons are improved ; they become more gracious and 
refined, largely because the conditions of life are easier 
here than those of the majority of mankind; the well- 
to-do can thus spend more time and thought upon minor 
matters in social intercourse. The manners of good, 
or polite society are, properly, the kindest manners, be- 
cause they have been the object of much consideration 
with a view to making the relations of men and women 
in refined society pleasant and agreeable in every way. 
" Courtesy," our word for the finest kind of manners, 
comes from the " court " of royal personages where the 
greatest attention is usually paid to cultivating fine 
manners. 

But politeness and courtesy have now, of course, no 
necessary connection with kings or nobles. The law of 
kindness requires consideration of others, in preference 
to a selfish absorption in one's own pleasure or profit, 
and such kindness is not chiefly dependent upon our 
outward rank. As far as external conditions go, it is 
more easily cultivated in a state of comfort and leisure 
than in a state of hardship and poverty, but its essence 
is in the kind heart. True kindness does not require 
that we try to suspend for any one the fit operation of 
the laws of human life, or that we excuse him from 
obedience, most of all, to the moral law. Kindness does 
not allow us to be untrue in our words or unjust in our 
deeds, but it implies a constant control over the tongue 
and hand, so that the spirit? in which we act and 
speak shall be gentle and considerate of the feelings of 
all other human beings. To speak the truth in love, — 
to do justly while we love the mercy that is above all 
sceptred sway, — this is the ideal of human conduct. 



82 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

Naturally, we learn most easily how to live in this 
best way through our experience in our own homes. 
There our kin are our teachers in kindness. Nothing 
can surpass a mother's kindness for her children, or a 
father's concern for the happiness of his sons and 
daughters, unless it be the love of the husband and wife 
themselves, united in a true marriage. The love of our 
brothers and sisters, the kind thoughtfulness and affec- 
tionate helpfulness which are the very atmosphere of a 
happy home, instruct us that the same quality of mind 
and heart will make our intercourse with other human 
beings better and more humane. Opportunities for for- 
getting ourselves, for thinking how to do good, and for 
the doing of it, are innumerable in every life, and the 
character of every person becomes stronger, richer, and 
more beautiful, as he improves these occasions. We 
are not doing our whole duty when we simply tell the 
truth without regard to the mode of telling it ; when we 
give other people their rights, without considering the 
manner in which we regard these rights ; or when we 
have brought ourselves to obey every precept of the 
moral law in an external way only. This law is a law 
of life ; obedience should become a second nature, so 
that all its hardness and difficulty may pass away. 

" Serene will be our days, and bright 
And happy will our nature be 
When love is an unerring" light 
And joy its own security." 

The element of beauty is needed in our conduct, as 
elsewhere in human life. Kindness supplies this grace 
and charm, in that it carries regard for others to the 
point of making it a fine art. Nothing is more beauti- 
ful in human intercourse than purely unselfish love, — 
of man and woman, of mother and child, of brother and 
sister, of whole-hearted friends. Beautiful, too, is the 
good man's regard for all other members of the great 
human family, when nothing that is human is alien to 



THE LAW OF KINDNESS. 83 

his heart; when the sight of the weak, the ignorant, 
and the poor, reminds him that we are all of one primal 
nature, and that the law of kindness is the supreme law 
for man. 

The short and easy way to stamp this character of 
beauty on our conduct is to begin with the heart, out 
of which are "the issues of life." When we think 
clearly, we perceive how far beyond and above all the dif- 
ferences and distinctions between human beings are the 
great and fundamental likenesses of man to man, which 
should arouse and sustain in us all a feeling of the com- 
mon brotherhood of humanity. The single person enters 
into a larger life by sympathy with another. Man and 
woman come together in marriage, the closest union of 
this kind, and find strength and beauty in a home where 
love reigns, and family ties multiply the sweetness and 
the power of life. The same feeling can extend itself, 
in various degrees, but in the one form of human kind- 
ness, to all the relations of life, to soften and refine and 
beautify human society. 

The law of kindness tends to put down all " sur- 
vivals " of the beast, the primitive savage, and the bar- 
barian, in the individual and in the world at large. Un- 
kindness is injustice to one of the same race with 
ourselves ; it is untruthfulness to the great fact of our 
common humanity. But as a positive force of interest 
in others and sympathy with them, kindness becomes 
the finest justice and the most delicate truthful- 
ness. Harshness is unjust, and cruelty is brutal ; both 
these opposites of kindness are unhuman. But let us 
do a kindness to a person whom we have disliked, and 
what an effect it has in clearing away injustice in our 
own mind ! We often see how false has been our view 
of what we called the facts of his nature. Human 
kindness preserves the family and the home, and makes 
them fair and satisfying. A man and his wife used often 
to quarrel, she said, but now that they kept u two bears " 



84 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

in the house all went happily : the names of these two 
peacemakers were Bear and Forbear ! 

Kindness in the form of politeness and common cour- 
tesy makes the relations of men and women outside 
their own homes a source of pleasure and happiness, 
helping on every other good thing. Human kindness 
between nations would abolish war and all its horrors. 
Peace in the home and in the world, and, because of 
peace, larger opportunity for growth in knowledge and 
beauty and right and fulness of life in every direction, 
— this is the result of love fulfilling every moral 
law. When men act and speak and think and feel out 
of a generous, merciful, peaceful, kindly spirit, then 
their highest level here upon earth is attained, human 
nature comes to its finest flower, and the fullest fruit- 
age of life is sure. 



NOTES. 
" The quality of mercy is not strained." 

A classic book on courtesy is The Gentleman, by George H. 
Calvert, full of references to history and literature, from Sir 
Philip Sidney to Charles Lamb. Dr. Holmes defines good breed- 
ing as " surface Christianity, " and Cardinal Newman says the 
gentleman is " one who never willingly gave pain." 

" Moral life is based on sympathy ; it is feeling for others, 
working for others, aiding others, quite irrespective of any per- 
sonal good beyond the satisfaction of the social impulse. En- 
lightened by the intuition of our community of weakness, we 
share ideally the universal sorrow. Suffering humanizes. Feel- 
ing the need of mutual help, we are prompted by it to labor for 
others." (G. H. Lewes.) 

Kindness to animals is distinctively a modern virtue in Chris- 
tian countries. It is an extension to the lower animals, espe- 
cially to those we domesticate, of the considerate treatment we 
have first learned to give to our own species. 

" I would not enter on my list of friends 
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 



THE LAW OF KINDNESS. 85 

Yet lacking sensibility) the man 

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm." 

Read Rab and his Friends; such poems as The Halo, by W. C. 
Gannett, and selections from the biographies of men, like Sir 
Walter Scott, fond of dogs and horses. See Miss Cobbe on the 
Education of the Emotions in the Fortnightly Review, xliii. p. 223. 
Lessons on Manners, by Edith W r iggin, is a good handbook for 
the teacher. As for kindness in charitable works : — 

" That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 
He gives only the worthless gold 
Who gives from a sense of duty ; 
But he who gives but a slender mite 
And gives to that which is out of sight, 
That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms. ,, 



CHAPTEE VII. 
THE GREAT WORDS OF MORALITY. 

In our previous chapters we have studied the mean- 
ing of " law " in general, and of the " moral law " in par- 
ticular. " Duty/' " ought," " justice," and " kindness " 
we have also explained. But there are numerous other 
words used very commonly in speaking of human ac- 
tions, such as " right " and " wrong," " conscience," 
" virtue," and " vice," which we have not yet consid- 
ered. In every art and in every science a clear under- 
standing of the exact meanings of the words we use is 
important. But nowhere is it of more consequence 
than when we are speaking or writing about the moral 
character of actions. Indeed, in discussing matters of 
conduct the decision as to their rightness or wrongness 
often turns upon the definition we give of " right " and 
" wrong " in general. In this book we are trying to 
keep clear of controversies as to the ultimate nature of 
vice and virtue, of the morally good and the morally 
bad, and to remain upon the ground of practical ethics 
where there is a general agreement among men. In 
such a spirit, avoiding refinements and subtleties, let us 
look at some of the words which mankind commonly 
use in regard to morals. 

In the first place, however, what do we mean pre- 
cisely by " moral " or " ethical " ? The two words have 
the same signification, the first coming from the Latin 
language, and the second from the Greek ; both mean 
" pertaining to the habits, manners, or customs of men." 
Of course, not all possible actions of human beings are 
called " moral." We eat and sleep and do many other 



THE GREAT WORDS OF MORALITY. 87 

things which all other animals do as a part of their ani- 
mal existence. These are not immoral but unmoral 
acts : there is no propriety in applying the words 
" right " and " wrong " to them. We read and study, 
again ; we employ our minds in many ways, and we do 
not think of vice or virtue as fit words to use about 
what we are doing. There is thus a great deal of hu- 
man life which lies outside of the world of moral 
distinctions : our instinctive animal existence, the 
natural play of the mind, and numerous powers of con- 
scious thought and action have standards other than 
those of morals. We may not judge a book, a picture, 
or a building by morals alone. 

Only sl part of all the manners and customs of men 
do we properly call moral or immoral. This part, evi- 
dently, takes in those actions which most directly affect 
the welfare of other persons. Man in society is the 
subject of moral or ethical science, and our actions 
show themselves to be moral or immoral according as 
they tend, immediately or ultimately, to the welfare or 
to the injury of other human beings. Eating my break- 
fast is not a moral act in itself ; but if I give another 
person poisoned food for his breakfast, it is a highly 
immoral deed that I do. If any act of mine is plainly 
confined in its consequences to myself, then its moral 
quality is not immediately obvious. If every human 
being were out of all relations to every other, there 
could be no such science or art as morals or ethics, for 
" duties to self," as they are sometimes called, would 
not, alone, constitute such a science. But there is a 
law, as we have seen, governing all the many actual 
relations of men to one another, and because we are 
social beings and live our lives mainly together, this 
law, the law of morality, is of the very first importance 
to us. Duty, " the ought," as we have explained, is the 
obedience we " owe " to this law. But there is a very 
common phrase, " rights and duties." This combination 



88 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

indicates the social nature of morals. Our duties are 
what we owe to others ; our rights are what others owe 
to us. Their rights are our duties ; their duties are 
our rights. 

" Right " (which comes from the same root as rectus, 
straight) means, first of all, "in accordance with rule 
or law." Righteousness, or rightness, is equivalent to 
rectitude, which means going straight by the rule or 
measure. This rule has come to be for all mankind the 
rule in particular derived from the moral law : right 
means, therefore, doing the things which the moral law, 
of truthfulness or kindness for instance, prescribes to 
be done. If we can find this law and merely under- 
stand it as we should any other law of nature, we are 
intellectually right, i. e., correct in our thought ; if we 
act as it commands, we are morally right, so far as our 
action is concerned ; if we obey it in a spirit of glad- 
ness, as the inspiring law of our human life, then we 
are right, all through, — mind and hand and heart and 
will : then we are completely moral beings. 

" Right " has in it the notion of straightness, straight- 
forwardness, directness. A " right line " is the straight 
line between any two points. Right conduct is conduct 
tending directly to social welfare, the good of all em- 
bracing the good of each. But when one's action is 
bent or swayed out of this straight line, when it tends 
to some other mark than the good of all, it is " wrong," 
i. e. y it is wrung out of conformity with the rule or 
law. 

Now the great occasion or cause of wrong-doing in 
the world is, as we have seen, that we are apt to think 
only of ourselves when we act. Our own welfare very 
often so takes the first place in our thoughts and feel- 
ings that we care little, or not at all, what the conse- 
quences of our deeds may be to other persons. There 
are, in truth, many matters in which we must think 
about our own comfort and convenience as the impor- 



THE GEE AT WORDS OF MORALITY. 89 

tant matter, since self-help is the best kind of help ; and 
if the thing we desire is good for us, it may be entirely 
right that we should endeavor to obtain it. But when 
a benefit of any kind is one that may be shared, or that 
must be shared, in order that no one shall suffer because 
another gets more than his portion, then pure selfhood 
becomes selfishness, and is wrong. For example, a 
farmer works hard to make money from his land : he 
labors on his own place, and has his own interest, not 
his neighbor's, in view, as he buys and sells according 
to the usual laws of trade. This is right : there is no 
selfishness about caring for one's self in this way. But 
the farmer is bound to provide for his wife and chil- 
dren, to see that they have enough to eat, that they are 
well clothed, that the children go to school, that the 
hired men receive fair wages and are punctually paid, 
and that all the benefits of his prosperity, such as it is, 
are divided among those who have a just and natural 
claim upon him. But while the farmer is making 
money, he may compel his family to fare poorly and 
dress meanly ; he may keep his children at work when 
they should have the opportunity to go to school ; he 
may " beat down " the pay of his workmen and delay 
the payment. In all these ways, not to speak of other 
matters, he may disregard the fact that we are partners 
with one another. Instead of going straight to the 
mark of the plain and simple duty before him, he may 
force and complicate things into a state of wrongness 
by his selfishness. The crooked line is the proper em- 
blem of the conduct that obeys no law; the straight 
line, of the conduct that is true to the direction which 
the law commands. 

Vice, a common word in speaking of bad conduct, 
means, first of all, a defect : it refers to a deficiency 
in the exercise of that power of self-control of which we 
have before spoken as the root of morality in the pri- 
vate person. One man does not exert himself as he 



90 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

might about his proper work : he has the vice of idle- 
ness. Another does not control his liking for intoxi- 
cating liquors, and he falls into the vice of intemper- 
ance. A third man may have a violent or an irritable 
disposition which he does not control, and he falls into 
the vice of bad temper. So the vicious man practically 
sets up his own pleasure or wilfulness as the law by 
which he acts. He is not strong, but weak, in that he 
does not have the mastery over himself which full obe- 
dience to the moral law requires. 

Virtue, on the contrary, originally meant manliness, 
and especially the distinctive excellence of a man, 
courage. The word always implies strength, and 
when it came to be applied to conduct, it marked power 
of will to control one's self, according to the law of 
right. The " cardinal," or chief, virtues were formerly 
said to be justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. 
Underlying all these is the notion of strength. Jus- 
tice demands the ability to put down one's exorbitant 
wishes and to limit one's self, as well as other persons, 
each to his share. Prudence (from pro-vidence, looking 
forward) signifies a will-power which is sufficient to 
curb our own indolence or extravagance or carelessness 
in view of our probable needs or interests in the future. 
Temperance implies just such a restraint, such a stop- 
ping short of excess, with a view to the more immedi- 
ate consequences. Fortitude is courage, active or pas- 
sive, in doing or bearing. These four " virtues " (from 
the Latin vir, a man) are signs of manliness : they 
belong to the manly mind and the manly will. Injus- 
tice, imprudence, intemperance, and cowardice are 
equally marks of moral weakness in a person. A train- 
ing in virtue, then, is like physical training : its object 
is to give strength and power of self-control. In one 
case we strengthen the muscles by use that they may 
be ready servants of the will in time of need. In the 
other case we strengthen our powers of judgment and 



THE GEE AT WOBDS OF MORALITY. 91 

self-control in small matters, so that we may show our- 
selves equal to emergencies which require the full 
strength of a man in resisting evil. 

" Conscience " is the word we use to denote each per- 
son's knowledge of the moral law, or his power of know- 
ing it and passing judgment as to matters of morality. 
Its meaning, etymologically, is doubtful. " Knowing 
with," its two members (con-scio) signify, but "knowing 
with " whcut ? Some call it a faculty which gives an im- 
mediate knowledge of right and wrong, and does not 
need instruction, but only opportunity to speak. Others 
would call it a faculty capable of enlightenment like 
any other faculty of the human mind. Into such dis- 
cussions as to the ultimate nature of conscience we have 
no need to enter here. The final ground of right, 
whether in utility or in experience or in intuition, is 
another point which belongs to the theory of ethics, not 
to the practical morality which now concerns us. On 
the main matters of conduct there is virtual agreement 
among civilized men as to what is right and what is 
wrong. Why this, finally, is right or why that is finally 
wrong, is another matter, on which philosophers differ 
and dispute. The great majority of mankind are inter- 
ested only in determining what to do, not what to 
think, in the sphere of conduct. It is agreed by all 
that children need instruction and advice as to right 
and wrong, and a great part of the conversation and 
the writing of grown people consists of the giving of ad- 
vice or suggestion about moral matters. Thus whatever 
our consciences may be, in the last resort, we all need 
instruction as to the facts in any case where we have to 
act, and we need to reason clearly and logically from 
these facts in the light of moral principles generally ad- 
mitted. Not only is this so ; we need to have our inter- 
est in right-doing, by others and by ourselves, kept up 
and quickened by thinking earnestly about conduct and 
clearing our minds, and by purifying and strengthening 



92 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

our wills, so that we shall understand and do and love 
the right. If we are thus drawn toward the moral life 
with the full force of our nature, it is of little conse- 
quence how we define conscience, or what our theory is 
about its origin in the history of our race. Like the 
sense of beauty, the moral sense justifies itself by its 
results, not by its definitions : each aims at a practical 
result, not at the vindication of a theory. The virtuous 
life, all will say, is life in accordance with the highest 
laws of human nature. " Good " is, to us human be- 
ings, whatever is fit or suitable for man ; moral good is 
what is fit or suitable for man to do or be in the society 
of his kind. The good man, morally speaking, is al- 
ways good for something. 



NOTES. 



The teacher will do well to trace the natural history of every 
work that conveys a sense of moral obligation. " Should," he 
will find, for instance, is derived from the Teutonic root skal, to 
owe: thus its meaning is radically the same as that of " ought." 
"Must*," — a frequent word in this book, — is often equivalent 
to " ought." One ought to do so and so to attain an end = one 
must do it. Right is noted as the straight and obvious course in 
these lines: — 

" Beauty may be the path to highest good, 
And some successfully have it pursued. 
Thou, who wouldst follow, be well warned to see 
That way prove not a curved road to thee. 
The straightest way, perhaps, which may be sought 
Lies through the great highway men call I ought" 

Right is simple, L e., without folds; wrong is often duplicity, 
full of complexities. 

"Man is saved by love and duty," said Ainiel; "society rests 
upon conscience, not upon science." " A society can be founded 
only on respect for liberty and justice," M. Taine declares. 

" A right " can be made out only when it can be proved to be 
some person's positive duty; " the right " is what all ought to do, 



THE GREAT WORDS OF MORALITY. 93 

i. e. y what they owe to one another, or to society at large. The 
variations of conscience in different times and countries (see 
Wake, The Evolution of Morality} correspond to the degrees of 
enlightenment reached by the human race ; they prove that mo- 
rality is a progressive art, not that right and wrong are delu- 
sions. Conscience needs enlightenment and training, like all 
other human powers. A high stage of progress is marked in 
Carlyle's saying: "There is in man a higher than love of happi- 
ness. He can do without happiness, and instead thereof find 
blessedness." Rights and Duties is a suggestive little manual 
by Mrs. K. G. Wells, and Mr. Smiles's Duty has an abundance 
of illustrative matter. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 
HOME. 

Home is the name we give to the place where our 
family life is lived. The family, made up of father, 
mother, children, and other blood-relatives, is the most 
important and most' helpful of human associations. We 
are born into the family, and in our years of weakness 
we are supported and our life made stronger and better 
by the love and help of father and mother, and brothers 
and sisters. When we grow up, we marry and form 
other families, and become ourselves fathers and mo- 
thers, bringing up children, as we were brought up. 
Home, " sweet home," ought to be, as it is to most per- 
sons, the dearest spot on earth, where we find loving 
words and sympathy and kind deeds, and where we may 
return these, and do each his full part in this small and 
close society, — very powerful for good because it is a 
small body and the " life together " is here intimate and 
continuous. We have certain hours for work away 
from our homes ; we associate with others in school, or 
business, or travel, and in divers other ways ; but at 
home we not only eat at the same board and sleep under 
the same roof, but we know one another and can help 
and love one another day after day, and year after year, 
until in the family we die, as into the family we were 
born. " Home " is the sweetest and strongest word 
in our language, because it stands for so much of love 
and fellow-service^ for the tenderest and fairest side of 
our life. 

The family, which makes the home, is a natural insti- 
tution, the outgrowth of our deepest human nature. 



HOME. 95 

The love of man and woman which brings them together 
as husband and wife comes next to the instinct of self- 
preservation in its universality and power. It is the 
foundation of the family, and if we follow it along its 
course of development and refinement in the civilized 
countries of to-day, we find the virtues, that is, the 
strengths and the excellences, which go to make the 
true and perfect home. 

The husband and father is the natural head of the 
family ; on him it depends for its support. He used to 
have in ancient times even the power of life and death 
over his children. But the power which he now has is 
based on right and reason. The wife and mother is his 
friend and dear companion and constant helper. On her 
more than on him, in the natural course of things, the 
daily care of the children rests. To father and mother, 
then, the boys and girls of the house should look up 
with respect and love as older and more experienced 
than themselves, and thus able to teach and guide them 
in many things of which they are ignorant and incapa- 
ble. The first thing necessary to make a happy home is 
cheerful obedience paid by children to their parents, 
■who are providing them with food and clothing and 
shelter and education, and who have no greater desire 
than to see their children growing up to be good and 
intelligent men and women. Children in their younger 
years can return but little for the immeasurable love 
and help which their fathers and mothers delight to 
bestow upon them. But they may make life pleasanter 
for their parents by showing a cheerful and contented 
spirit, by returning the love, and doing the little they 
can to aid in the daily work of the family life. In 
running errands, in learning to help itself about dress- 
ing, in tending the baby, for instance, the young child 
may exhibit a loving and helpful spirit, which will 
make it still dearer to the heart of father and mother. 

At home, more than anywhere else, obedience to those 



96 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

who have a natural right to command should be ready 
and cheerful. Our parents are older and wiser than we ; 
they give us directions only for our own good, and have 
our happiness always in view. Until we can see and 
understand the reasons why they order us to do this 
or that, we should do it because they have ordered it. 
Father and mother are the law-makers and law-executors 
for the children, who should obey as the sailor on a ves- 
sel at once obeys the captain or the pilot, as the soldier 
gives instant attention to the command of his officer, 
and as the hired man at work follows the directions of 
his employer. Father and mother are acting for the 
good of the whole family. The children mast be content 
to obey, and take their own share, and should not make 
life hard for their parents by disobedience, stubborn- 
ness, idleness, or other forms of selfishness. The Golden 
Eule would teach children to remember constantly how 
much father and mother are doing for them, not only in 
the matters which any one can see, such as care for 
their health and comfort, but also in training them to 
become honest and upright men and women. This is 
the greatest thing that our parents can do for us, to 
bring us up in habits of self-control and truthfulness 
and honor and kindness, so that as we grow older, we 
can be trusted to walk by ourselves and to do the right 
because we know it and prize it, not simply because 
we are ordered to do it. 

But this doing of the right is, quite naturally, what 
children often like very little or dislike very much. 
They want to have their own way, whether it is the 
right and reasonable way, or not. They do not always 
" feel like " going to school, or helping their parents or 
brothers and sisters in some small way. But home 
rests upon law and love. The father, who sees so 
much more clearly than the unwilling boy what is right 
and just and fair and reasonable, will make him "mind," 
by force, if necessary. The great law of the home is 



HOME. 97 

helpfulness and kindness from each to all and from all to 
each ; it is always well with us if the law is enforced 
whenever we do not cheerfully obey it. Boys and girls 
are growing up to become fathers and mothers them- 
selves, in their turn, and they cannot learn too soon 
that each must be ready and willing to do his own part 
in the work of life, and be satisfied with his share of 
good and pleasant things, helping and helped, happy 
and making others happy. 

There should be no other place like home to us. 
There is no other place where we can show so plainly 
what we are, — kind and true and helpful, or selfish 
and false and careless of our duty. Moral training be- 
gins here, and throughout life it centres here. When a 
man is a good son or father or husband, he is likely to 
be a true man in business and in the larger life in gen- 
eral, beyond his home. We need, then, to think very 
carefully about our duties at home that we may be 
sources of sweetness and light there. In the right and 
true home we love and help one another without asking 
a return, and from no selfish motive whatever ; begin- 
ning with the simplest forms of duty we rise to the fair- 
est heights of love through self-forgetfulness in kindly 
service. 

The virtues of home are the qualities which tend to 
make it strong in a mutual helpfulness of all the family 
circle, and sweet and pleasant in a beautiful spirit of 
love. To serve, not to be served ; to give, not to re- 
ceive ; to help and bless continually by word and 
example, — this makes firm the family bond, and keeps 
home as it should be, the dearest place on earth. The 
virtues, the strength and the excellence of home lie 
deep in justice and right and truth ; but nowhere else 
can we so love and be loved, nowhere else does duty 
so easily pass into affection. Home should, then, be a 
sacred place to us. We do well to remember the Lares 
and Penates, as the old Eomans called the household 



98 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

gods. Their images were in every house ; a perpetual 
fire was kept on the hearth in their honor ; on the table 
the salt-cellar stood for theni, and the firstlings of the 
fruit were laid, and every meal was considered as, in a 
sense, a sacrifice to them. When one of the family 
came home after absence, he saluted the Penates as 
well as the family, and thanked them for his safe re- 
turn. So we should consider our home holy ground, — 
too holy for wrong or vice to tread, — a place sacred to 
love and duty. Through these virtues home is deeply 
helpful to our best life beyond the family border. 



NOTES. 



Theke is a considerable literature on the origin and develop- 
ment of the family in human history. Such a book as E. B. Ty- 
lor's A nthropology (in the closing chapter on Society) will be suf- 
ficient for most uses. It is of vastly more consequence to study 
family life in its highest excellence to-day than to trace its ani- 
mal beginnings. Ethics is concerned more with what ought to 
be than with what is or what has been; at the same time, a 
knowledge of the past and the present is necessary to any wise 
attempt to shape the future. Herbert Spencer, in his Justice, 
marks this fundamental difference between family ethics and 
state ethics : " Within the family group most must be given where 
least is deserved, if desert is measured by worth. Contrariwise, 
after maturity is reached benefit must vary directly as worth; 
worth being measured by fitness to the conditions of existence." 

The monogamous family is the form under which modern civ- 
ilized man obeys the imperious instinct which bids the race pre- 
serve itself. Self-preservation, in its broadest sense, is the com- 
panion-instinct. The dictates of both are obeyed in the close 
cooperation of the family, where the most exigent duties are ren- 
dered easy by the strong affections naturally engendered. The 
monogamous family, Goethe said, is man's greatest conquest 
over the brute; it rests not upon mere animal inclination, but 
upon the most constant obedience to duty, — an obedience ren- 
dered easy and happy by use and love. 









HOME. 99 

Some classic poems of home are the " Cotter's Saturday- 
Night ; " Cowper's " Winter Evening ; " Wordsworth's lines to 
the lark, " Ethereal minstrel, pilgrim of the sky ; " and Whittier's 
" Snow Bound." Three good books are Home Life, by J. F. W. 
Ware ; Home Teaching, by E. A. Abbott; and The Duties of 
Women, by F. P. Cobbe. The pamphlet lessons on Home Life, 
by Mrs. Susan P. Lesley, are suggestive. 



CHAPTEE IX. 
WOKK. 

Man is born to work and employ his powers of body 
and mind for good ends. That we have strength is a 
sign that we were intended to use it in order to preserve 
our life and make it comfortable through our exertions. 
That one may eat and drink, have clothing and shelter, 
get an education, own a house, be able to travel, or enjoy 
life in any one of a thousand ways, he must work, or 
some one must work for him. No human being is free 
from the necessity or the duty of working and making 
use of his natural powers. 

Now all work has its conditions of success, and these 
demand certain qualities which we will call the virtues 
of work. They are such excellences of character as 
Industry, Punctuality, Orderliness, Intelligence, and 
Economy. Taking a general view of all kinds of labor, 
we see that to do any work well and succeed in gaining 
a good result, we must comply with these natural moral 
conditions ; if we will not, then we fail, whatever our 
other virtues may be. As each one of us grows up and 
takes to some special kind of business to support him- 
self and those dependent on him, he is obliged to learn 
the proper ways of doing things, whether it be farming, 
or carpentering, or teaching, or practising law, for in- 
stance. Each pursuit has to be learned by itself, hav- 
ing its special works and needs. One person must live 
on a farm and work under a farmer to learn' agriculture ; 
another must go into a printing-office and learn his 
"case" if # he would be a compositor; a third must go 
to college and a professional school to learn medicine or 



WORK. 101 

law. But in all these directions we find work has its 
general laws, the same everywhere, and we cannot begin 
too soon to recognize them and obey them, whatever we 
are doing. 

I. We must be industrious. This means that we 
must be willing and ready each of us to do at least the 
share of work that comes to him, at home, in the school- 
room, or in business. We must learn to like work, if 
we do not naturally enjoy it, by working, and to rejoice 
in the fact that we are accomplishing something in this 
world. We have to form a habit, by practice, of steady, 
patient, and persevering labor. We must have intervals 
for rest and play or recreation, but while we work we 
should work with our might, and while we play, let us 
play ; work and play are successful and reach their aim 
only when so taken. If we idle when we should be 
working, some one else must do the work that we should 
have done, and thus the fundamental rule, "each his 
part," is violated. Pure idleness is shirking one's duty 
as a soldier deserts his regiment. Idling over one's 
work, " scamping " it, is unjust to those who employ us, 
and naturally leads to our discharge. Into what we are 
doing we should put our whole strength; if disagree- 
able work is before us we must learn not to be concerned 
about the disagreeableness and in time the task will be- 
come easier and less irksome. The first law of each 
place of work is work ! School is the place to study 
in ; the blacksmith's shop, the cotton-mill, the shipyard, 
are places in which to use one's hand and eye in steady 
labor ; let us, then, do the head-work or the hand-work 
faithfully. 

• II. Most of the work that men do must be done at 
fixed times, if it is to be done well. There must be an 
hour for opening the shop or the factory or the school, 
and at this time the workers must attend, for " time is 
money " to all who work. Punctuality, being true to 
the point of time, is one of the first of business vir- 



102 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

tues. The hour is set for beginning the day's work, and 
we are to be paid for the day's time. If we are late in 
arriving at work, we are not performing our part of the 
agreement, and are thus doing wrong. Business of 
every kind must have its time set for beginning and 
ending, and time has more and more value as men 
become more civilized. So we should imitate in our 
human affairs the punctuality shown by the tides and 
the changes of the moon and even the comets, whose ap- 
pearance is foretold by astronomers, ages beforehand, to 
the minute. When " on time," the school opens with 
all the pupils in their seats at the fixed hour, and the 
lessons and study begin at once. The school work is not 
hindered and delayed by Fred or Mary lagging behind, 
and no one loses the whole or part of an exercise. We 
make engagements with one another to meet at certain 
places, to do certain things, to deliver goods, it may be, 
to join in all sorts of enterprises. Everywhere "punc- 
tuality is the soul of business," and the unpunctual man 
will not be tolerated long in any direction. The railroad 
train will not delay for him, and men who have business 
with him will not wish to continue it if he wastes their 
time by keeping them waiting. In all our dealings with 
each other, in which there is any question of time, 
respect and courtesy demand that we be on time, " pat 
betwixt too early and too late." 

III. Orderliness is necessary to success in business. 
There must not only be a time for everything to begin 
and to end, but there must also be a place for every- 
thing. In a well-managed carpenter's shop, for exam- 
ple, each saw and hammer and file has its hook or nail 
or slot where it belongs. When needed it is taken 
from that place, and when it has been used it is re- 
turned there. No time is then wasted in looking for it 
here and there, as in a shop where the workmen are 
slack and careless. 

The orderly workman begins at the beginning of his 



WORK. 103 

work : he keeps to one job at a time, so far as he can, 
until it is finished : then he takes up another. He ar- 
ranges his work beforehand in such order that it will 
require the least outlay of time and strength to do it 
well. He has his mind on his business ; all his energy 
and intelligence and skill he directs wisely, so as to 
procure the largest and best result. 

IV. Not only should every worker be as methodical 
and systematic as possible, for his own good and the 
good of all, skill is a duty for him. Here is a certain 
thing to do, to raise a crop, or build a house, or manage 
a railroad. Since man is an intelligent being and can 
know, if he will, many of the causes and ways of things, 
the farmer, the builder, and the locomotive engineer are 
bound to understand their business : each should 
study persistently the nature of the forces and the 
materials with which he has to deal, and acquaint him- 
self practically with the methods that other men have 
used to attain the end he is seeking himself. The best 
way of doing a thing does not come by chance to one 
who is ignorant and careless ; it comes to those who 
use their eyes and ears and their whole minds, carefully 
and patiently. The successful worker is the one who 
concentrates his full power on the task in hand. He 
wishes to do the most good work with the largest and 
best result inside of a given time and in the most eco- 
nomical manner. How to do this is an affair requiring 
thought. So to our virtues of industry and punctuality 
and order and economy, we need to add all the know- 
ledge of our occupation that keen observation and study 
of books or life can give us. 

Intelligence is a duty, as well as perseverance, for 
everybody. Not until we reach the limit of possible 
knowledge or training can we say that we have done 
our full duty, as intellectual beings, to the work that 
lies before us. " The very true beginning of wisdom is 
the desire of discipline." The power and ability that 



104 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

we have by nature are very well, but to be of much use 
or profit in the world, they must be trained : they 
must come and submit themselves to learn the virtues 
of work. Our human society stands firm because of the 
immense amount of patient work that is done day after 
day by millions of workers of all kinds ; and it advances 
in knowledge and beauty and comfort as this work be- 
comes more moral and more intelligent. The idle, the 
careless, the disorderly, the unwilling-to-learn are a 
burden on the industrious, the careful, the orderly, and 
the intelligent ; and each one should resolve not to 
be such a burden, but, by complying with the laws of 
good work, do his own manly part, and so have a right 
to enjoy his own share. 



NOTES. 



There is no lack of inspiring examples to do our best work in 
the lives of the great men of our own generation, of whom the 
newspaper, the monthly magazine, and contemporary books tell 
us. Perhaps the most forcible instruction from biography in 
the virtues of work is based upon the achievements of living 
men. Their word has often telling power, as when Mr. Edison, 
asked for advice how to succeed, answered : " Don't look at the 
clock/' i. e., forget yourself in your work, be possessed by it. 

Work is always to be disassociated from worry; see A. K. H. 
B. on A Great Evil of Modern Times. 

" One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, 
Of toil unsevered from tranquillity." 

On the other hand: — 

" Rest is not quitting 

The busy career ; 
Rest is the fitting 

Of self to its sphere." ' 

Read from Whittier's " Songs of Labor; " Captains of Industry, 
by James Parton, two series; J. F. Clarke and J. S. Blackie on 
Self-Culture; and Blessed be Drudgery, by W. C. Gannett (it is 



WORK. 105 

u the secret of all culture," he says). " Idleness," says old Burton, 
" the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, the chief 
author of all mischief. " "Labor is man's great function; the 
hardest work in the world is to do nothing." (Dr. Dewey.) 

" There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. 
Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there 
is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works; in 
idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so mam- 
monish, mean, is in communication with Nature; the real desire 
to get work done will itself lead one more and more to truth, to 
Nature's appointments and regulations, which are truth. All 
true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true hand- 
labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the 
earth, has its summit in heaven." (Carlyle.) 

Work is of the mind as well as of the hand; the tendency of 
civilization is set forth by Sir Thomas More : — 

" The Utopians, when nede requireth, are liable to abide and 
suffer much bodelie laboure ; els they be not greatly desirous and 
fond of it; but in the exercise and studie of the mind they be 
never wery. . . . For whil, in the institution of that weale pub- 
lique, this end is onelye and chiefely pretended and mynded, 
that what time may possibly be spared from the necessary occu- 
pacions and affayres of the commen welth, all that the citizeins 
should withdraw from the bodely service to the free libertye of 
the mind and garnishinge of the same. For herein they sup- 
pose the felicitye of this liffe to consiste." 



CHAPTEE X. 
THE LAW OF HONOR. 

The moral law, we have seen, is the law which de- 
clares the proper relations of human beings to each 
other in personal conduct. Like every other natural 
law, it is disclosed Jo us by study and observation of 
the beings whom it governs. It governs them because 
it is a part of their nature, which they cannot escape. 
Man is a social being, and if he would live in society as 
he desires, he must obey the laws of the social life : of 
these laws the moral law is a most important part. A 
portion of it is written down in the statute law of the 
land, and is carried into effect against wrong-doers by 
courts and police and prisons. 

Another part is recognized in this or that country as 
binding on all ; but men do not judge it expedient to 
pass laws concerning it. A power that we call " public 
opinion " enforces certain duties, such as the education 
of a man's children according to his means, without 
legal penalties. The law of the land obliges every par- 
ent to send his children to school so many weeks in the 
year ; in the State of Massachusetts this must be done 
up to the age of fourteen. This is all that the legisla- 
ture, or the State, thinks it wise to attempt in the way 
of obliging all parents to educate their children. But 
when a man is amply able to send his children to the 
high school or to college, and they wish to go, public 
opinion says that he ought to send them ; and so much 
do men, in general, care for the good opinion of their 
fellow-men, that children not rarely receive this further 
education when the parents themselves do not admit 



THE LAW OF HON OB. 107 

the intellectual need of it. Public opinion, is, however, 
a very variable thing, and it often represents a sort of 
compromise between all kinds and degrees of private 
opinions, when it concerns a moral question. There 
must be some persons whose opinion is worth more 
than that of others on a point of right and wrong, just 
as there are on a matter of art or science. These per- 
sons every one will recognize as the honorable people, 
those who live according to the moral law of honor. 

I. There are two very opposite senses in which a per- 
son may be " a law to himself." A man may be willing 
and ready to defy and disobey the moral law whenever 
and wherever he thinks he can do so safely. If the 
offence he has in mind is one against the written law, 
he will commit it in case he thinks himself sure not to 
be found out, or in case he cares less for the shame of 
the punishment than for the advantage to be gained 
from the crime. This man's law is his own self-interest, 
or the gratification of his passions, whether for his in- 
terest or not. He will care little for public opinion in 
respect to matters of which the law says nothing. So 
he will lie and cheat and steal and break his promises 
whenever he considers it to be for his own advantage. 
He will rob and do personal violence, perhaps even 
commit murder, if he considers himself very likely to 
escape punishment. He thus puts himself outside the 
moral law which declares these deeds wrong in them- 
selves, and makes his own will his law. But such con- 
duct is directed against the very life of human society, 
which would go to pieces if it were practised to any 
great extent. Therefore these dangerous classes, the 
open enemies of order and civilization and morality, 
must be kept down. Laws are passed against them : 
the constable and the policeman, the criminal courts, 
the jails and the prisons, and the gallows in the last 
resort, are employed against these savages and barba- 
rians who are survivals from the times before mo- 
rality. 



108 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

Other enemies of morality are those men who are 
more crafty and prey on their fellow-men by taking 
advantage. of the imperfections of the statute law to de- 
fraud and do any other wrong which they think for 
their own interest. They do not kill, or rob on the 
highway ; but they make war on their kind by craft. 
Morality is to them simply an outside restraint : they 
cannot be trusted to do right when to do wrong would 
be for their own profit. Both these classes, the violent 
and the crafty, are " a law to themselves " in the bad 
sense that they reject all law but their own will. 

II. At the other extreme in human society stand 
those men and women who are a law to themselves 
in the good sense of the phrase. They see that all the 
laws which mankind has ever made are but clumsy and 
imperfect attempts to carry out the full moral law as 
the highest minds and the best hearts perceive and feel 
it. They do what they know to be just, not because 
the authorities will otherwise punish them, but because 
they realize that justice is the one fit thing for men to 
do to one another. They keep the peace because they 
love peace and the things which peace brings. They 
tell the truth because they wish to live themselves and 
to have others live, at all times, in a real world ; their 
word does not need to be supported by an oath, — it is 
always to be relied upon. Their verbal promises are as 
good as written contracts made before witnesses and 
under penalty. They pay regard to every known right 
of others because they feel that we are members one of 
another in society, and that " no man ever hurt himself 
save through another's side." 

To live in this way is to live under the law of 
honor. Every honorable man feels bound to live up to 
his fullest knowledge of right, without regard to the 
statute law or to public opinion, which are satisfied with 
a lower standard. He is very sure that both are, and 
must be, imperfect, and that his duty is to remedy their 



THE LAW OF HONOR. 109 

imperfections and to show in his own practice a nearer 
approach to what is demanded by the full moral law. 
His own enlightened conscience is his guide : it tells 
him to square his conduct not by the letter of morality, 
but by its spirit. " Conscientiousness " means having 
a delicate conscience and paying instant heed to it, in 
small things as in great things. To be conscientious, 
to be high-minded, to be magnanimous, to be honorable, 
— these are one and the same thing : the words mark 
the person to whom morality has become real and vital. 
The conscientious are truthful in the extreme degree ; 
the magnanimous do nothing mean by taking advantage 
of the weakness or the mistakes of others ; the honor- 
able are themselves the highest moral law incarnate. 
The essence of honor is in fixing one's eye upon the re- 
sult to character of any action and then acting as self- 
respect and kindness dictate. To follow the law of 
honor is the ideal of morality ; and no one desiring to 
live the right life should be satisfied until he values the 
moral life for itself as the highest and best expression 
of refined human nature : then he is one of the truly 
honorable of the earth. 

Any practice that is dishonorable, however common, 
bears its condemnation in itself : it must disappear be- 
fore a more active moral sense, a better instructed pub- 
lic opinion, or more thorough-going legislation. Every 
honorable man has the duty laid upon him of raising 
the standard of morality in his business or profession. 
There are tricks in every trade which do not cease to 
be evil because they are common ; there are offences 
against truth in every profession, which are none the 
less wrong because they are nearly universal. Morality 
and business, honor and trade, must be kept together. 
No man is justified in saying to his conscience, prescrib- 
ing the law of honor, what Frederick the Great used to 
say to his people demanding a reform : " You may say 
what you like : I will do what I like." 



110 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

A reputation for honorable dealing has a high busi- 
ness value : honor pays in the commercial sense, if a 
man will trust in it, in the long run, if not immediately. 
When the farmer " tops off " his barrels of apples or 
potatoes, or his boxes of berries ; when the grocer sells 
oleomargarine for butter ; when the tailor palms off an 
ill-made suit of clothes upon a near-sighted person; 
when the manufacturer sells shoddy for woollens, they 
are short-sighted. Steady custom cannot be kept by 
such tricks. A reputation for honorable dealing is of 
more value than all that can be made by occasional im- 
position. 

But honor pays in a much higher sense. One of 
the surest foundations of morality is a just self-respect. 
A man who has lost his self-respect cannot be trusted : 
he cannot trust himself. Dishonorable practice saps 
this foundation : it introduces a kind of dry rot into 
the moral life. When some unusual strain of tempta- 
tion to do gross wrong comes upon a man who has been 
guilty of dishonorable conduct, perhaps known only to 
himself, he will probably go down, as the great Tay 
bridge went down in the night, because of some flaw, 
carrying with it hundreds of lives. 

The justly anxious passenger on an ocean steamer, 
in a severe storm, asked the captain if the vessel could 
live through the tempest. " If any ship can, this one 
can," replied the captain ; " I know her builder, and I 
know that she was built on honor." That is a good 
word for all : Build Life on Honor ! When we are 
children at home we cannot begin too soon to make our 
word the exact counterpart of fact so far as we know it, 
and our promise to do anything the assurance of honest 
performance. If we break any precious piece of glass 
or furniture about the house, let us not break the truth 
too : let us fear that damage more than any punishment 
that can come upon us. 

In the school we can build life on honor, by refusing 



THE LAW OF HONOR. Ill 

to prompt, or to be prompted by, another scholar ; we 
can scorn to use " ponies," we can take our examinations 
fairly, without the trick of scribbling the answers before- 
hand on our cuffs or elsewhere ; when we have done 
wrong, we can take our punishment manfully, with- 
out trying to sneak out of it and letting some inno- 
cent person be suspected or even disciplined for it. 
When we leave school and take up the active business 
of life, we can build on honorable work, done carefully 
and faithfully. Let no one need to watch us or inspect 
our performance to see if we have been shortening the 
quantity or " scamping " the quality of our work. We 
agree to work certain hours, on understood conditions ; 
honor bids us fill these hours with patient work, having 
a single eye to the interest of our employer ; it bids us 
live up to every condition of our self-chosen task. 

If we ourselves become employers, building life on 
honor means doing justice to our men, paying wages 
promptly and fully, and recognizing and rewarding 
merit. It means dealing justly in every trade, giving 
fair measure and just weight and due quality. If our 
chosen business has a certain dishonorable practice in it, 
it is our duty to try and " reform it altogether " if we 
can ; no one knows how much he can do to improve the 
morality of his trade or business or profession until he 
has, very earnestly, tried. Honor forbids cheating an 
individual. It forbids cheating a corporation as well ; 
if the " corporation has no soul," this is not a suf- 
ficient reason why you should not have a conscience ! 
Pay your fare, then, if you take your ride in the horse- 
car, or the steam-car ; the corporation has fulfilled its 
part of the contract in transporting you ; fulfil your 
part by paying for the ride. It is dishonorable to take 
advantage of the mistake or oversight of those with 
whom you have dealings ; in making change, or ex- 
change, the honorable man takes and keeps only what 
belongs to him. 



112 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

The honorable lawyer seeks, first of all, to have jus- 
tice done, not to pervert it in the interest of a guilty 
client, that the innocent may suffer. The honorable 
physician prepares himself for his difficult profession 
by long study, and despises the bogus diploma. The 
honorable clergyman respects the dignities of his profes- 
sion, and in all his dealings follows the strictest code of 
personal morals. The honorable statesman makes only 
pledges that he intends to keep, and builds " platforms " 
on which he means to stand. 

Building life on honor is building it like a good mas- 
ter-builder, on honest day-labor, not on a contract out of 
which we seek to profit as much as possible. In the 
end it is always better to be, than to pretend to be. 
We are to respect the law ; we are to respect public 
opinion ; but, most of all, we are to respect our careful 
consciences. "- Where you feel your honor grip, let that 
aye be your border," beyond which you will not go. 



NOTES. 

Magnanimity is the end to be sought in all discourse of 
honor. The mind great in virtue, if not in talent, is strong, 
healthy, and serene; but parvanimity implies weakness, disease, 
and distress. " This is a manly world we live in. Our rever- 
ence is good for nothing, if it does not begin with self-respect." 
(O. W. Holmes.) 

M The wisest man could ask no more of fate 
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, 
Safe from the many, honored by the few ; 
Nothing to court in Church, or World, or State, 
But inwardly in secret to be great." 

(Lowell.) - 

Some have complained that in the human world disease is 
catching while health is not. This is a mistake; health is at 
least as contagious as disease. But in the moral sphere the truth 



THE LAW OF HON OB. 113 

is obvious that honor calls out honor, the best way to advance in 
morality being to take the forward step yourself, relying on the 
innate disposition of men to do as they are done by. See De 
Quincey's story of A Noble Revenge. 

" Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 
In other men, sleeping but never dead, 
Will rise in majesty to meet thy own." 

The honorable persons in a community are the saving rem- 
nant, and they are never satisfied until public opinion inclines in 
favor of the just way which they advocate and practice. Moral 
progress usually begins with the exceptionally conscientious in- 
dividual. He first persuades a few ; in time the few become 
many, and the public opinion, which governs all modern states, 
soon expresses itself in law, if it is deemed expedient. 

The " law of honor," criticised by Porter (Elements of Moral 
Science), is the technical code prevailing in a certain class or 
profession ; to this his objections are well founded. But the law 
of honor here set forth is limited by no artificial or class distinc- 
tions. Wordsworth's lines describe it: — 

" Say, what is honor ? 'T is the finest sense 
Of justice which the human mind can frame, 
Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim, 
And guard the way of life from all offence, 
Suffered or done." 



CHAPTEE XI. 
PERSONAL HABITS. 

The greater part of morality has reference directly to 
our relations with other persons. But a large portion 
of our duty concerns things that we are to do for our- 
selves, as no one else can do them so well for us, and 
that affect others only indirectly. 

I. Each of us has to care for his own person. Clean- 
liness of body and neatness in dress are matters of in- 
dividual ethics, which we have to learn to attend to as 
early as we can in life. Such habits as frequent bath- 
ing and cleaning the teeth are parts of that physical 
virtue in which every human being should be diligent. 
Bodily health is so important in every way, in its bear- 
ings on our own happiness and the welfare of others, 
that we should make it no small part of the right life 
to conform all our physical habits to the rules of health. 
Some say that it is " a sin to be sick ; " certainly, very 
much of the illness and disease in the world is avoid- 
able. If this were prevented, as it might be, then a 
great addition would result to the comfort and pros- 
perity of mankind. 

Among the foremost of the laws of health is Tem- 
perance, or moderation in eating and drinking. Eating 
to excess, not for the sake of satisfying the natural 
desire but for the mere pleasure of gratifying an appe- 
tite artificially stimulated, is a great evil. Gluttony, 
beside causing immediate distress, brings on many dis- 
eases ; it unfits one for mental occupation, and it makes 
one careless of the welfare of others ; it puts the animal 
above the intellectual part of us, where it should not 



PERSONAL HABITS. 115 

be. Enough, is not only " as good as a feast," but better, 
for it leaves us able to enjoy the pleasures of the mind, 
which the heavily-loaded stomach will not allow. 

Intemperance is so much more plainly and widely 
injurious in the matter of what we drink that the word 
is commonly taken to mean this one kind of bodily ex- 
cess. We are not in much danger of drinking water to 
excess, or those common beverages of the table, tea and 
coffee, although here we sometimes need to be on our 
guard. It is in the direction of those intoxicating 
drinks which are used, more or less, all over the world, 
to produce agreeable sensations, that men are most of 
all intemperate. So immense and wide-reaching are the 
bad effects of indulgence in these intoxicating liquors 
that it is altogether safest to abstain totally from using 
them as a beverage, taking them only in cases of sick- 
ness or absolute need. They are artificial stimulants, 
and the body is usually sounder and better off without 
them. The drunkard puts an enemy in his mouth that 
steals away his brains ; he becomes insane for the time, 
and moral law has no power over him until he becomes 
sober. Through continued indulgence he loses his self- 
respect ; he comes to care only for the gratification of his 
debased appetite. The result is waste and ruin to him- 
self and to all who are dependent upon him. Loss, un- 
happiness, and misfortune of a hundred kinds attend 
upon drunkenness. It has been well said that Debt 
and drink are the two great devils of modern life. 
Total abstinence, then, from the use of intoxicating 
liquors as a beverage, is the part of wisdom and virtue. 

Less injurious, but still to be shunned as an unclean 
and wasteful habit, is the use of tobacco, especially in 
the worst way, — chewing. The frequent use of tobacco 
is apt to lead to drinking, and it is in itself a habit bad 
for the body and bad for the mind ; increasing refine- 
ment should put an end to it. 

One may be intemperate in work, in not regarding 



116 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

the limit which his strength and his health fix for him. 
However good the motive, overwork is to be blamed as 
unwise ; injurious to one's self, it spoils the temper, and 
causes more unhappiness than it can cure. Too much 
study is worse even than too much play for the growing 
boy and girl. The course of wisdom for old and young 
is to find how much work of hand or head one can do 
without exhaustion, and stop there. 

Of physical virtue men in ancient Greece used to 
think much, and the men of the civilized world are to- 
day concerning themselves much about it. The sound 
body is always the first thing, in order of time, to attend 
to ; the sound mind shows itself such in asking for 
a sound body as its ready and capable servant and 
helper. To balance work and play ; to keep every nat- 
ural appetite true to its proper office ; to be clean and 
pure and active and sound bodily, — this is a great 
matter in human life, for without physical virtue all 
other virtues lack a strong friend. To physical sound- 
ness some kind of regular bodily work or exercise is 
indispensable. 

II. Next comes intellectual virtue, the duty of cul- 
tivating our minds so that we can " see straight and 
think clear." The chief glory of man is his intellect : 
the very word, " man," is said to mean " the thinker." 
In every civilized state the education of the people is a 
vital matter ; it is especially such here in our own coun- 
try. Nature will look after our bodily growth, if we 
will let her have her own way and not hinder her by 
bad habits. But our minds need more attention, so 
that we may start right in life ; the public schools are 
built, and we go to them as boys and girls that we may 
learn the elements of knowledge, and begin to use our 
minds capably. We are steadily growing intellectually, 
if we spend our time faithfully in school. When we 
leave school, whether it be the grammar school, the 
high school, the college, or the professional school, we 



PERSONAL HABITS. 117 

are more free to fix our own hours and plans of study. 
But we are not intellectually virtuous, we do not show 
ourselves possessed of strong and active intellect, unless 
we continue to cultivate our minds to the extent of our 
ability as long as we live. One way to do this is by 
mastering our work or business, whatever it is, by 
studying it in practice, and by reading what others have 
found out concerning it. Every art has its science, and 
we should never be satisfied to be mere hand-workers 
or to travel round and round the same dull routine. 
Art and science are inexhaustible, and the pleasures of 
the active mind are very pure and high and satisfying. 
Whatever one's intellectual ability may be, he should 
give it lifelong cultivation, as a matter of duty to 
himself and to others. 

We can do the most for others when we make the 
most of our own ability; whether we have positive 
"talent" or not, it is a duty laid upon all to think 
soundly, that we may act wisely and rightly. The mis- 
fortunes of mankind are largely due to insufficiency in 
the knowledge which might be ours, did we strive for 
it, and to vices of the mind such as wilful blindness 
and obstinacy in the face of facts, and loose thinking. 
These troubles might be avoided largely if we remem- 
ber that intellectual virtue is a great part of right-doing. 
In order to do the right we must first know the right, 
and we shall not know it if we are content to be foolish 
or ignorant. Always to be willing to learn, to be fair and 
candid, to defer to facts and the laws of facts, to try to 
think all around a subject and deep into it, to discuss 
disputed matters with good temper and a single desire 
to get at the truth, — these are some of the intellectual 
virtues which have a most important part to play in 
our life. In the common schools we cannot go far 
beyond teachableness; but this is the beginning of 
true intellectual virtue. 

III. Much of our most valuable education we get 



118 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

through the work we have to do in order to live and 
enjoy life. The training of our will by the discipline 
of school, of business, of regular employment of any 
kind, is necessary if our natural powers are to do their 
best work. We have spoken of " the virtues of work " 
under another head. Here we may mention them again 
with reference chiefly to the person who practises them. 
" Prudence " is a word which marks the application of 
mind to work and life. A shortened form of providence 
(foresight), it implies the training of the eye of the 
mind to look forward that we may prepare in the pres- 
ent for the future. It is a great intellectual and practi- 
cal aptitude to be able to do this. The wisely prudent 
man is self-denying to-day that he may not be in danger 
of starving or some only less severe misfortune next 
month or next year ; he is economical because he knows 
that every little counts in the end : he takes a long look 
ahead, and, like a good chess-player, adjusts his moves 
to this view. 

Every man who wishes to think clearly and act 
wisely must be aware that one of the greatest obstacles 
to both of these excellences is indulgence in bad tem- 
per. When we are peevish and captious, or when we 
are in a positive passion, we cannot see straight, we 
cannot think clearly, we cannot do justly. We need 
to discipline our natural temper, then, to take account 
of ourselves, to realize, from our own knowledge or 
from what others tell us, the chief faults to which 
we are most exposed, the principal weaknesses of our 
minds and the deficiencies in our previous training, that 
we may by earnest self-culture do away with all these 
(oftentimes we think them points of strength), and be- 
come strong by self-control. Suppose that we think 
twice before acting once ; that we stop long enough to 
count twenty before saying the sharp or bitter word 
that is on our tongue. The word will be kinder and 
wiser ! the deed will be better ! The patience we show 



PERSONAL HABITS. 119 

in training a dog or a horse ; the pains we bestow upon 
our own bodily habits when " in training " for a race or 
a match-game, — these are a type of the attention and 
the care that we should give to the training of our 
tongues and our tempers in the ways of sweetness and 
light. 

We have different temperaments by nature : some 
persons are constitutionally more lively, cheerful, and 
fond of society than others. In our judgments upon 
others and on ourselves we cannot properly ask that all 
shall act and talk alike : each one must be allowed to 
be himself. But sft man is a social being, a degree of 
cheerfulness and sociability is incumbent upon all in 
ordinary life. Cheerfulness may not be in itself a vir- 
tue, but it is a natural grace ; a happy and pleasant dis- 
position may not be a duty for every one, but all ac- 
knowledge its charm. In the common social relations, 
then, at home and at school, for instance, we do wisely 
to cultivate beauty in action. Modesty, cheerfulness, 
and kindliness in little things of manner belong to the 
beautiful. The " gentleman " and the " lady " show 
the excellence of refinement in conduct. Courtesy, 
which once meant the manners of court where the no- 
bility lived in wealth and leisure, is the flower of right- 
doing, a flower which any one may cultivate. Strength 
is one of the two things which all men desire. The 
righteous action is usually that which requires the most 
real strength : moral courage, for instance, is the high- 
est kind of courage. But Beauty, the other thing uni- 
versally desired, comes into human actions with kind- 
ness. When it takes the form of politeness to all with 
whom one is brought into contact, of a gracious cour- 
tesy to the nearer circle of one's acquaintances and 
friends, and of personal affection for the nearest of all, 
"the Ought, Duty, is one thing with Science, with 
Beauty, and with Joy." 



120 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 



NOTES. 

" Our work," says Montaigne, " is not to train a soul by itself 
alone, nor a body by itself alone, but to train a man ; and in man 
soul and body can never be divided." The right care of the 
body includes some daily work or exercise ; abstinence from sen- 
suality and intemperance ; regularity in eating and sleeping ; 
cleanliness ; training of the eye and hand ; the acquirement of 
physical skill in our particular trade or craft, if we follow one, 
and the harmonious development of all the bodily powers. Books 
of instruction in physical virtue are nowadays very plentiful, and 
it is not necessary to single out any hefe for special mention. 
" The first duty of every man is to be a good animal." 

" Intellectual virtue " brings up the vast subject of education 
in general, — that which schools give us and that which we give 
ourselves. The care of the mind is more apt to be neglected 
by good people than it should be. Much bad temper is due to 
ill-advised bodily habits ; so also much wrong proceeds from 
carelessness in finding out the truth, the mental indolence which 
is satisfied with good intentions, when sound thoughts are needed 
almost as much to bring about welfare. Self-culture, in the 
sense of continual progress in knowledge and in the power of 
reasoning well, is within the reach of all in this age of books. 
" Pegging away " at one's own mental deficiencies will produce 
astonishing results. If only an hour or a half -hour a day is 
spent on some really great book, instead of being nearly wasted 
on the newspaper, the result of a few months' perseverance is 
most encouraging. It is in the direction of self -education (the 
best kind of all) that biographies help us greatly. To get the 
utmost profit from them, one should make a personal application 
to himself of the example of virtue set by the man or woman 
whose actual career is portrayed, and ask if there is not some- 
thing especially adapted to himself in the methods of self-dis- 
cipline described. Advice that we give ourselves, incited by the 
record of a true man's life, comes with tenfold power ; it is the 
best of all counsel. 

The allusion in the last paragraph of this chapter is to the 
following words of Rev. F. H. Hedge, D. D. : — 

" There are two things which all men reverence who are 
capable of reverence, — strictly speaking, only two : the one is 



PERSONAL HABITS. 121 

beauty, the other power, — power and beauty ; man is so consti- 
tuted that he must reverence these so far and so fast as he can 
apprehend them. And so far and so fast as human culture ad- 
vances, men will see that holiness is beauty, and goodness, 
power." 



CHAPTEE XII. 
OUR COUNTRY. 

I. Patriotism. We have spoken of the duties that 
we owe to the family, the school, and society in general. 
The family is a small society into which we are born 
and in which we grow up : its obligations are the strong- 
est, even as the ties it makes between human beings are 
the closest. In other associations of men, each having 
a special object, — as when we make part of a school, of 
a business firm, or of a society for the advancement of 
some reform, — we have special duties according to the 
end and aim of the association. But there is a larger 
kind of association of men than the family or the school, 
or business partnership or the reform society, — to name 
no others. It is the natural grouping of great bodies 
of human beings, according to their race or their coun- 
try, into Nations or States. These may include mil- 
lions of people, living under one common law, enjoying 
the benefits of the same government, and bound to- 
gether by the same great duties to it. 

Here in the United States of America, as the name 
shows, we use the word " State " in a special sense to 
mean Massachusetts or Pennsylvania or California, for 
instance, all the different States being united in what is 
called a federal government to make the Nation. The 
distinction is very important politically in our country 
between the State government and the National govern- 
ment. But it is a distinction made for practical conve- 
nience, and it does not affect the fundamental notion of 
the State as the association of men under one govern- 
ment. When we speak of the State here then, we may 



OUR COUNTRY. 123 

intend sometimes a particular State of the Union in 
which we live and sometimes the Nation, — the United 
States ; but we always mean a great association of hu- 
man beings for political ends. Whatever name it may 
bear, the State, large or small, is the supreme earthly 
power over each and every person in it. Usually, it is 
an association of multitudes of people of the same race 
in one particular land, — their native country, — as 
with the French in France or the Italians in Italy. In 
our own land we are a people made up of many races ; 
but we are still one people, living in one country and 
subject to one government. 

We Americans cannot be patriots after the manner 
of men who live in a small country with a king over 
them to whom they owe loyalty, and whose will is 
largely law to them. Our country is very great in size, 
and each one of us is part of the power that rules it all. 
As the Italian is loyal to the king, or the German to the 
emperor, we have to be loyal to the people. For the 
great American idea is that " The people rule." Gov- 
ernment is here of the people, by the people, for the 
people, as Theodore Parker and Abraham Lincoln have 
said. This is the democratic principle which is carried 
out in a republican form of government. The Ameri- 
can patriot is one who is loyal to this great principle of 
equal rights and equal duties, and will give his life, if 
need be, to aid the government which stands to defend 
it. Our country has a right to anything we can give : 
nothing that we can give her is equal to all that she 
secures to us, — our life, our liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. So when our country is in danger, from a 
foreign foe or from civil war, it is the simplest, plain- 
est and foremost of all duties for each and every citi- 
zen to be ready to take up arms in her defence. For 
her defence means the defence of all that we hold dear, 
— family, home, friends, our great institutions, our high 
principles, our inspiring ideas of human brotherhood. 



124 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

We will not say " Our Country, right or wrong ! " in 
dealing with foreign nations, but Our Country for- 
ever ; we will keep it safe and hold it right ! In 
time of war our native land must first be defended 
against every assault : in time of peace it must be made 
the home of justice. When we see the veterans of the 
Grand Army of the Republic marching through the city 
streets, some of them bearing the tattered flags which 
once they carried through the smoke and fiery hail of 
battle, we loudly cheer these standards, and our blood 
thrills, for the flag is the sign of Our Country, and we 
feel that, like those war-stained men, we, too, would 
follow the flag to save the State. In great love for 
man, for the cause of our fatherland, we, too, would dare 
everything. 

" Though Love repine and Reason chafe, 
There comes a voice without reply : 
'T is man's perdition to he safe, 

When for the Truth he ought to die." 

Happily, in our peaceful land, the call for such su- 
preme devotion rarely comes. Whenever it has come, it 
has always been heeded by the great mass of men, who 
show how natural and right, how sweet and beautiful 
it is to die for their country. Rare, indeed, is the man, 

" With soul so dead, 
Who never to himself has said 
' This is my own, my native land.' " 

And when we say it, we feel that our country has a su- 
preme claim upon us. It is the largest part of the 
whole human race the thought of which moves any but 
great and exceptional natures to self-sacrifice. We may 
be sure, too, that he will love all mankind best who 
loves his country best, and by his devotion makes it the 
strongest helper of all the sons of earth.- 

Men are more wont to feel deeply patriotic in time of 
war than in time of peace. The thought of our whole 
country as above party and creed, above North or South 



OUR COUNTRY. 125 

or East or West, finds us and moves us most profoundly 
when the welfare of the whole country is visibly threat- 
ened. In time of peace, by far the longer time of the 
two, we are thinking mainly about our family, our busi- 
ness, our local interests, and of the things in general 
which are apt to divide one section or one State from 
another. The main duty of the citizen in peace is to 
save the State, not from destruction from without, but 
from error and wrong-doing within. Patriotism then 
takes another form, as important to the welfare of all 
as volunteering for the battle-field. 

II. Political Duty is this other form of patriotism, 
the duty, that is, of doing one's part in the government 
of our country, in State and Nation. Every man over 
twenty-one years of age has the right to vote for other 
men who shall represent him, i. e., stand for him, in the 
work of making and administering the laws. Each 
man is, therefore, a ruler in this country. His power 
and right as a voter brings along with it a very plain 
duty to exercise the right and use the power for the 
good of all. This signifies to the American voter four 
things : He should keep himself well-informed on public 
questions. He should do his part by his words toward 
constituting a right public opinion, made up of a great 
sum of single opinions become powerful by union. He 
should vote according to his own convictions of truth 
and justice. He should not, as a rule, seek office, but he 
should be ready to hold it for the public good when 
called to it by the voice of his fellow-citizens. 

There are, usually, in a free country some great ques- 
tions of public policy on which political parties are 
formed. One party advocates a certain line of action ; 
another would do differently if entrusted with the 
power of government. In our country there are now 
opposite views about the tariff, for instance, about the 
coinage of silver, and about the proper relations of the 
National government to the State governments. As 



126 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

each man by his single vote can affect the policy which 
is at last adopted by Congress, he should cast this vote 
intelligently. He should enlighten himself as to tariffs 
and free trade, for example, and vote so that his con- 
viction as to what the welfare of the country demands 
may be carried into effect. He should not be satisfied 
to take his opinions from the newspapers of the party 
with which he usually votes, and let them do his think- 
ing for him, talking and voting as they say. He should 
read books written by able men who are not partisans, 
on the particular subjects in debate, and he should in- 
form himself, generally, about the history of our coun- 
try, and have some knowledge, the more the better, of 
the sciences of politics and economics. The intelligent 
citizen who knows for what he is voting, and why, is 
the mainstay of the Republic. The illiterate voter 
who does not know what he is voting for, or why, is the 
greatest danger to free institutions. 

It is the duty of every citizen who has thus formed 
an intelligent opinion on political matters to do his part 
in creating and sustaining a sound public opinion. This 
he can do by feeling and showing an interest in politics 
in the good sense of the word : this is not a selfish 
scramble for office, but the discussion and settlement of 
great public questions according to reason and right, 
through men of ability and character. Especially in 
the case of reform movements in political life is it the 
duty of each individual to stand up for what he honestly 
believes to be the right, and to express himself openly 
and freely in favor of the specific measure which would 
save the Republic from harm. The history of all re- 
forms proves how important is the duty resting upon 
the private citizen to use his right of free speech. 
Slavery was abolished in this country as Jbhe final result 
of agitation by individuals endeavoring to arouse the 
conscience of the people. So it will be with the politi- 
cal evils of our own day : the faithful conscience of 



OUR COUNTRY. 127 

the individual is the power which is to destroy them, 
sooner or later. 

No man who has the right to vote has a moral right 
to refrain from voting, whenever it is possible for him. 
The plainest part of his political duty, bound up with 
his very right, is to exercise the suffrage. He is not 
doing his duty to his country when he stays away from 
the polls on election day, whatever the real cause may 
be, — indifference, contempt, or absorption in business 
or pleasure. The one method that avails in our coun- 
try for procuring just laws and honest officials is to 
vote for capable and worthy men. Under this method 
each vote counts, and each voter should see that his 
own vote is thrown. He is not responsible when the 
opposite party succeeds in electing a bad man or in car- 
rying a wrong measure, if he has voted against them : 
the responsibility rests upon the other party. But he 
is responsible to the extent of his vote if his own 
party elects a bad man or passes a wrong law. Hence, 
he is not only bound to vote, and to vote intelligently, 
but to vote with a single eye to the public good, with a 
certain party or against it, according to his own reason 
and conscience. 

Few men are qualified by their abilities or character 
to serve the State in high political positions. But in 
the civil service, as a whole, there is a proper opening 
for any one who desires to work for the town, the city, 
the State, or the Nation rather than for a private em- 
ployer. This routine business of the government has 
nothing to do with the political issues of the day, and 
should be kept apart from them and be conducted on 
strictly business methods and principles. When so 
conducted, it is open on equal conditions to every citi- 
zen who is capable and worthy, without regard to his 
politics. The representative offices should not be 
sought by the private citizen ; but when his fellow-citi- 
zens call upon him to represent them in the town or 



128 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

city government, in the legislature or in Congress, their 
summons should be heeded, unless there are strong rear 
sons to the contrary. The talents and the worth of all 
its citizens are properly subject to the call of the com- 
munity, and the public service should be esteemed by 
every one as the most honorable of all services. 

In time of peace, then, the patriot thinks upon these 
political duties, — his obligations to inform himself, to 
spread right views, to vote, and to hold office at the 
will of the people. 



NOTES. 



I. The teacher will find without difficulty in the works of the 
leading American poets, and in " Speakers " containing extracts 
from our most noted orators, selections suitable for reading that 
are calculated to inspire an intelligent patriotism. Such poems 
are numerous in James Russell Lowell's works in particular : see 
" The Present Crisis " (" When a deed is done for freedom ") ; the 
Biglow Papers ; his poems of the war, his three centennial poems, 
and, most of all, the " Commemoration Ode." Longfellow (" Thou 
too sail on, O Ship of State "), Holmes (" The Flower of Lib- 
erty "), Whittier (" Democracy " and numerous war poems), and 
Bryant have written many noble verses of patriotism. Webster, 
Everett, Winthrop and G. W. Curtis are names of orators that 
will occur at once to the instructor of American youth ; Lincoln's 
address at Gettysburg is foremost. Relating to patriotism in 
other times and countries are such poems as Byron's lines " They 
fell devoted but undying ; " " Horatius," by Macaulay, Brown- 
ing's " Hervd Riel," and " A Legend of Bregenz," by Adelaide 
A. Procter. There are several good collections of ballads of 
heroism. 

II. " Defence against the attack of barbarians from within is 
as essential in our democracies as defence against the foe from 
without." (Guyau.) The demagogue, well set forth long ago in 
Aristophanes' Knights (see J. H. Frere's translation), is the chief 
pest of democratic countries. " The people's government " of 
which Webster spoke, " made for the people, made by the people, 
and answerable to the people," must conform to the laws of poli- 



OUR COUNTRY. 129 

tics and economics. Every citizen should understand somewhat 
of these laws and of the history of his country in which they have 
been exhibited. Happily there is a fast increasing number of 
good books on civil government, citizenship, and elementary eco- 
nomics ; there is now no sufficient excuse for ignorance in these 
matters. Among the best of these volumes are John Fiske's Civil 
Government in the United States, Charles Nordhoff's Politics for 
Young Americans, Professor J. Macy's Our Government, and C. F. 
Dole's A merican Citizen. No public-school teacher can afford to 
be ignorant of Bryce's American Commonwealth. The Old South 
Leaflets contain the great documents of Anglo-Saxon freedom, 
which it is well to read entire. Mr. Fiske's book gives full 
bibliographical data for all who would inform themselves con- 
cerning our free institutions and their history. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
CHARACTER. 

A character, if we use the word in its most literal 
sense, is a mark or sign by which we may know a thing 
or a person. Character in the most general sense is 
the sum of all the intellectual and moral qualities which 
make one human being different from another. We 
will speak here of moral qualities only. This man has 
a bad character, we say : he will drink, steal, lie, or 
cheat when he has opportunity. That man, on the con- 
trary, is a man of good character : he is truthful, tem- 
perate, honest, and industrious. The servant-girl leav- 
ing one situation for another asks her mistress to " give 
her a character." This illustrates another common use 
of the word in which we employ it as by itself equiva- 
lent to " good character : " it is the sense in which we 
shall speak of character in this chapter ; we mean by it 
the collection and blending of distinctively good traits 
or qualities in a person. 

A man's character, of course, is what he is in him- 
self, not what he owns as something outside of him- 
self, or something he has personal relations with, as 
with his family or his partner in business. Now what 
he is in himself largely determines both what he will 
own and what relations he will have with other people. 
Very important, indeed, is it to a man, and to all con- 
nected with him, what he owns, — money, house, land, 
ships, warehouses full of goods, whatever it may be. 
But it is a great deal more important, both to himself 
and to others with whom he is in contact, what he is in 
himself, in his disposition and character. Health 



CHARACTER, 131 

has more to do with happiness than wealth, and few 
persons, probably, would choose a fortune if compelled 
to take bad health with it. Health of mind, soundness 
of soul, comes from living morally, i. e., according to 
the laws of the life together, just as physical health is 
dependent on keeping the laws of the body. If we 
have health of mind and heart, this, again, is a still 
more important matter than what we own. Our wel- 
fare and the welfare of others with whom we are living 
depend far more on our being kind, truthful, and just, 
than on the number of thousands of dollars we may or 
may not own. 

Character is, therefore, properly, an aim in itself, 
i. 0., a thing to be desired for its own sake. This we 
say not because it is out of relation to actual life or the 
persons in it, or can be separated from these, for all 
things in the world are related to one another, but be- 
cause it is so evidently of the highest value when logi- 
cally considered apart. We say that a certain man has 
a strong, independent, self-reliant character. He has 
the qualities in him indicated by these adjectives ; he is 
mentally and morally strong, self-contained, and able to 
stand alone against a number of men in the wrong. 
When any occasion comes for showing strength of mind 
and will, he will be prepared. Plainly, it is well that 
he should have been accumulating this strength before- 
hand, if there is, indeed, any way to do it. So with the 
kindness, the power to tell the truth or to do justly, 
that we are needing every day we live. If there is any 
way to store up in ourselves moral strength and 
beauty, which are demanded by the life in common, 
surely the knowledge of it is most desirable. 

Two things we must here bear in mind, especially. I. 
The good character that we show in our life-actions is 
not like a purse having so many dollars in it, out of 
which we take one or ten, as the case may be, and 
which we must be careful to fill up again before the 



132 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

money is all drawn out. It is, on the contrary, like a 
muscle of the arm which grows stronger by exercise, 
like a faculty of the mind, such as memory, which 
improves by practice. Our ability to tell the truth, to 
do honest actions, or to conduct ourselves graciously 
toward others, is a power that grows with use, and the 
good act becomes easier to us each time that we do it. 

II. Consequently we are wise when we aim directly 
at the good quality or moral faculty in itself. In other 
words, it is always well to do right because it is 
right. It is usually a difficult thing to trace out in our 
minds the probable consequences of this or that act 
which we are purposing to do, to imagine how it will 
affect this or that particular person, and a whole multi- 
tude of others. But if we know that it is right, so far 
as we can see, and that to do it will strengthen in our- 
selves the power to do right again, then we have con- 
sidered, in the vast majority of cases, all that we need 
to consider. We must bear in mind that mankind has 
been living many thousands of years on this earth, and 
that all this time men have been learning from experi- 
ence, hard or pleasant, sweet or bitter, how to live the 
life together. The teachings of this great, this vast 
experience have been solidified into the common moral 
rules concerning truthfulness and honesty and peaceful- 
ness and industry and all the other virtues and their 
opposite vices. These rules are repeated, again and 
again, in books, in proverbs about conduct, and in the 
daily talk of men giving advice to one another, or prais- 
ing or condemning other men's actions. We ought to 
profit by this experience of multitudes of men who have 
been before us, so as to avoid their errors and defeats, 
and imitate only their wisdom and their victories. 
Obedience to a few plain rules is all 'that we need 
most of the time. But the few strong instincts, of 
which the poet also speaks, are not strong enough in 
us to bring about complete and constant obedience. 



CHARACTER. 133 

We wish to have our own way and do as we please, 
without regard to the effect on other people, who have 
just as much right as we — i. e., none at all — to have 
their own way and do as they please. So we act as if 
we lived in a world where the most important of all 
affairs, the dealings of men with each other, were not 
subject to steadfast laws which take no account of your 
conceit or my selfishness, but forever determine that if 
men are to live in society and become civilized, they 
must do thus and so, as the severe and beautiful moral 
laws declare. Otherwise society cannot prosper : it 
cannot even be at all, and every individual must suf- 
fer accordingly. 

When we consider how perpetually we are acting and 
reacting on each other, and how our human life is 
three fourths conduct, if not more, we see how vastly 
important it is to make morality easy and natural to 
ourselves so that we shall, indeed, seem to be acting 
always from those " few strong instincts." How shall 
we do this ? In just the same way, fundamentally, 
that any one must follow who would acquire any other 
art. If a boy would learn to be a carpenter he must 
handle the saw and the chisel often : if a girl would be- 
come skilful on the piano-forte, she must first prac- 
tise scales and other exercises by the hour. Faculty 
comes from practice : skill is the result of industry 
in doing the thing. We see about us in the world men 
and women who are brave and generous and capable 
and true and kind and noble and sweet and gracious, 
whose words and acts are a great power of good to all 
who meet them or know of them. These persons are 
masters in the moral art. What they have done we, 
perchance, can do ; and we can begin to do it, in a small 
way and a slight degree. We gain strength and skill 
with practice, like the blacksmith at the anvil or the 
player at the piano-forte ; thus we find, in time, the 
moral line of least resistance, and do the right easily, 



134 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

naturally, and spontaneously. Until we do it so, it is 
not done beautifully, and no art is perfect until it 
comes to beauty as well as to propriety. The higher 
powers and graces of conduct are unattainable until the 
ordinary virtues have become so natural to us through 
habit that we do right without thought, as without diffi- 
culty. " Habit a second nature," said the great Duke 
of Wellington ; — "it is ten times nature." 1 

We can remake ourselves to an indefinite extent, in- 
side the limits of human nature, and the method is the 
formation of other habits. A certain good action may 
be very hard for us to do at first, but if we continue 
to do it, the difficulty diminishes and at last disappears : 
the action has become natural to us. But the " nature " 
we have in mind, in so speaking, is not the undisci- 
plined nature we had two or ten years ago as it was, 
but that nature trained and cultivated by the exercise 
of will, aiming at a certain moral strength. We have 
left a lower character beneath us, and have climbed up 
to a higher. 

We should then, each one of us, take ourselves in 
hand and realize that moral goodness is, least of all 
things, to be given by one person to another, that, be- 
yond all other desirable possessions, it is an art to be 
acquired by personal practice and individual experience ; 
that more than in any other direction, we can learn here 
from the errors and the excellences of others what to 
avoid and what to pursue ; that here supremely, to be 
is better than to seem, and that if we aim to be like 
the good and the true, to enjoy their repute and wield 
their power, we must patiently acquire their skill in 
goodness, their faculty of righteousness. 

We should encourage ourselves with remembering 
the immense aid we can derive from the record of the 
lives of the men and women who have made morality 
the finest of all human arts, not by their sublime in- 

1 This saying will bear a second quotation. 



CHARACTER. 135 

tellects or their illustrious deeds, but by heroic per- 
severance in self-control and self-devotion. Greater 
than this help even is the aid that we can all impart 
to one another by living sympathy and helpfulness. 
Sweetness and light, — we can give a small portion 
of these to one another every day, making the burdens 
easier and the path plainer. Cogitavi vias meas : "I 
have considered my ways." When we consider them 
well we ask for guidance from the noble and the true 
of the past and the present. By dwelling on their ex- 
ample and on the ideal of the perfect man who unites 
all virtues and all excellences, we are inspired to be- 
come something better than we are ; by patient continu- 
ance in well-doing we are slowly transformed into the 
image of our hope ! 



NOTES. 



The teacher of morals will do well to conclude every lesson 
by striking the note of character, distinguished from the note of 
external consequences as a test of conduct, and from the note of 
circumstances as a rule of action. "The character itself should 
be to the individual a paramount end, simply because the exis- 
tence of this ideal nobleness of character, or of a near approach 
to it, in any abundance, would go further than all things else 
toward making human life happy, both in the comparatively 
humble sense of pleasure and freedom from pain, and in the 
higher meaning of rendering life not what it now is almost uni- 
versally, puerile and insignificant, but such as human beings 
with highly developed faculties can care to have." — J. S. Mill, 
Logic, Bk. vi. Ch. 12. 

" It always remains true that if we had been greater, circum- 
stances would have been less strong against us." — George 
Eliot in Middlemarch. 

" A healthy soul stands united with the Just and the True, as 
the magnet arranges itself with the pole, so that he stands to all 
beholders like a transparent object betwixt them and the sun, 
and whoso journeys towards the sun journeys towards that per- 



136 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

son. He is thus the medium of the highest influence to all who 
are not on the same level. Thus men of character are the 
conscience of the society to which they belong." (Emerson, 
" Character.") The Chinese have a proverb : " He who finds 
pleasure in vice and pain in virtue is still a novice in both." 

''Even in a palace life may be led well ! 
So spoke the imperial sage, purest of men, 
Marcus Aurelius. . . . 
The aids to noble life are all within." 

M. Arnold. 

The " literature of power," as distinguished from the " litera- 
ture of knowledge," tends to shape character in manifold ways. 
A large part of the great literature of the world, judged by lit- 
erary standards, has immense influence, directly and indirectly, 
in forming the conduct of men. Lectures, sermons, and vol- 
umes on character are innumerable : see, simply as specimens, 
four books, Emerson's Conduct of Life, Character Building, by 
E. P. Jackson, Character, by S. Smiles, and Corner-Stones of 
Character, by Kate Gannett Wells. 

The importance to refinement of character of an early ac- 
quaintance with the best literature is well emphasized by Mary 
E. Burt in her Literary Landmarks and in the Atlantic Monthly 
for May, 1891 ; see also C. D. Warner's article in the same 
periodical for June, 1890, and " Literature in School," by H. E. 
Scudder, in the Riverside Literature Series. 

11 He spoke, and words more soft than rain 
Brought the Age of Gold again : 
His action won such reverence sweet, 
As hid all measure of the feat." 



CHAPTER XIV. 
MORAL PROGRESS. 

The first place where we learn about the moral laws 
is, of course, the home into which we are born. The 
family is the earliest and the latest school of morals. 
If we observe how children advance naturally in know- 
ledge and practice of the right, we shall find the broad 
lines on which the moral progress of the world at large 
has taken place. For, as the philosophy of evolution 
teaches us, the development of entire humanity is figured 
and summarized in the growth of each child. 

When the child has learned to obey father and 
mother, and when it will speak the truth to them con- 
stantly, it may still conduct itself immorally or immor- 
ally toward persons outside the home bounds. Chil- 
dren not rarely tell an untruth to a mere acquaintance 
or a stranger without any sense of wrong-doing, while 
they would think it very wrong to tell a lie to father or 
mother or brother or sister. This will not be so strange 
to us when we reflect that they have not yet learned to 
know any larger world than the home, that their ideas 
of right and wrong naturally take a very concrete form 
and are concerned with a very few persons. Eight is, 
for them, to " mind " father's and mother's commands, 
to do as they are told to do, and to tell their parents 
the truth. The general and abstract idea of obedience 
to the Moral Law applying to all mankind comes 
later and gradually with experience and enlarging power 
of thought. 

All the mistakes and imperfections of the morals of 
children can be paralleled from the practice of savages 



138 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

or barbarians now living, or from the records of early, 
historic mankind. The savage obeys his chief and 
complies very carefully with the customs of his tribe ; 
he tells the truth, in a rough way, to his fellow-tribes- 
men, and in general, he deals with them according to 
his rude notions of justice. But he has no notion that 
men of another tribe have any rights that he is bound 
to respect. He can deceive, cheat, maltreat, or kill 
them, in peace or in war, and his conscience will never 
trouble him. He has a tribal conscience, just as the 
child has a home conscience. So in later times, and 
down even to our own day, persons of one nation or 
race hate those of another or of all others, and con- 
sider themselves practically free from this or that 
obligation of truth or justice toward them. Such are 
the actual relations, too often, of the white man and the 
man with a black or a yellow skin ; of the Englishman 
and the Irishman ; of the French and the Germans. 
But as respects the extent to which the moral law 
applies, it is very plain that we do not reach a logical 
limit until we have included the whole human race. 
Morality is conterminous, i. e., has the same bounds 
and limits, with humanity, with all mankind. There 
are special duties and great differences in the degree 
of obligation according as we live in closer or looser 
relations with other human beings, from the nearness, 
constancy, and immediateness of home life up to our 
most general relations to the great mass of men whom 
we never even see. But whosoever the man may be, 
American, Negro, or Chinaman, with whom we have 
dealings at any time or in any place, the universal 
moral law dictates that he shall be treated justly. Nihil 
humani alienum a me puto, says a character in a play of 
the Eoman writer, Terence, u I esteeftn nothing human 
foreign to me." So morality might speak if we were 
to personify it. Every relation of man to men, without 
regard to country or complexion or race or age, is sub- 



MORAL PROGRESS. 139 

ject to moral judgment. Ethics is a science of a part 
of universal human nature : and morality is an art to be 
practised by us toward every other human being. 

Progress in general morals is going on, and must 
go on, until all mankind recognize that they live under 
one great moral law. This progress is marked by the 
discussion and agitation of the rights of this or that 
class of human beings that is constantly going on. 
What are the rights of women ? What are the rights 
of children ? What are the rights of the Negro or of 
the Chinaman in this country ? This word " rights " 
very often means "political privileges," such as the 
right to vote, with which we are not concerned in this 
elementary book. But the moral rights of women and 
children, of negroes and Chinamen, for example, are 
much more important to them than these political privi- 
leges. Moral progress consists, in one aspect, in the 
increasing recognition, theoretically and practically, of 
the fact that there is the same measure of right and 
duty for every human being. 

Each person has a right to himself, to his own per- 
son : so slavery, the ownership of one man by another, 
as if he were a piece of property like a dog or a horse, 
is wrong, whether the slave be white or black in color. 
Women have peculiar duties as wives and mothers ; but 
as human beings in a civilized state they have the same 
general rights as men to education and property and 
labor. Children are morally bound to obey their par- 
ents and other superiors in authority ; but parents are 
bound, as well, to respect the nature of the child and to 
give him an education to fit him for mature life. So 
there are the rights of workmen and servants, as well 
as their duties, which are to be borne in mind by mas- 
ters and employers. As a rule, it is a bad sign for any 
person, man or woman, to be talking very much 
about rights ; commonly, he would have fully enough 
to do in attending to his duties. We can never be 



c 



140 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

too well aware that each right has a corresponding duty 
in our relations with every other human being. So 
much, then, for the extension of the ideas of right and 
duty to all mankind. 

We can make progress, as well, in the thoroughness 
with which we conceive and apply the idea of our duty 
to the persons with whom we have the most to do. In 
other words, our morality may be intensive as well as 
extensive. As we come to make no exceptions in the 
matter of persons, and thus include all other human 
beings in the range of duty ; so we also make progress 
morally by deepening and intensifying the moral life, 
— thought, feeling, word, and act. Some persons seem 
to think or to care very little about right and duty ; 
they do not pay attention to their own ways and habits 
to see if these may be improved morally, so as to be 
juster or kinder. Their life may not be vicious ; and, 
if they are naturally amiable and cheerful, it may have 
much in it to commend. But thoughtlessness about one's 
own conduct can never properly be praised. The art of 
human life together is the greatest of all arts, and it 
can never be learned too thoroughly. We can make 
the most and the surest progress in it by " giving heed " 
to it. 

We are not to become morbid and think overmuch 
about ourselves : we should look out, not in ; up, not 
down; forward, not back; and be ready to lend a 
hand. But observation of the moral life in others, 
who excel in truth and goodness, should be frequent, 
that we may learn of them to be and to do better. We 
should not be satisfied with a low standard of right, 
content to do as most others are doing in our neighbor- 
hood, or town, in our political party, or our section of 
the country. To do a thing because others do it is not 
a sufficient reason. We are bound to consider if it is 
right, according to our highest and most correct ideas 
of right ; if it is not right we are bound, in reason and 



MORAL PROGRESS. 141 

honor, not to do it. No moral progress would be possi- 
ble if some one did not set the example of following 
his conscience rather than complying with a bad habit 
which many persons are practising. The strictly con- 
scientious and honorable people are usually in the 
minority ; but we should look to them, not to the ma- 
jority, to discover the whole extent of our duty. If 
the truly honorable of the earth are wise, their practice 
in a particular field must in time widen and widen, 
until it has become general. 

A very important part of our duty is to enlighten our 
minds by thought and discussion and reasoning on 
moral matters. We easily get into the rut of personal 
routine and class prejudice, and we often need to 
have a free play of fresh thought and feeling over the 
surface of our living. It is a good practice, in this re- 
spect, occasionally to go away for a time, from our work 
and our homes, even from those who are dearest to us. 
Returning, we find ourselves stronger and more inter- 
ested in our work, and more appreciative of the beauty 
and love at home. It is good, too, every day to read 
and consider some inspiring word about conduct by one 
of the many great teachers who can help us to live 
in the spirit. Like Goethe, we can refresh ourselves 
and lift up the whole level of the day with five minutes 
spent over a poem or a picture. Thus we learn, little 
by little, what magnanimity is, and, however slowly, 
come to live nobly. Upon our actual practice a stream 
of earnest thought should play ; and strength to do the 
highest right will come by exercise of the power we 
have, as we understand better and feel more deeply the 
full meaning of the whole moral law. So feeling, we 
rejoice to repeat the magnificent eulogy of the " Stern 
Lawgiver " in the " Ode to Duty " : — 

" Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
And fragrance in thy footing" treads ; 
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, 
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong." 



142 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

With Wordsworth we join in the petition : — 

" To humbler functions, awful Power ! 
I call thee : I myself commend 
Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 
Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 
Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
The confidence of reason give ; 
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live ! " 



NOTES. 



The evolution of morals has been the theme of numerous writ- 
ers of the present day, who have industriously collected a great 
amount of information concerning the conduct of mankind in 
all times and countries. But the difficulties to ethical theory- 
presented by the wide variations of conduct among men have long 
been a familiar topic with writers on ethics. See for an exam- 
ple of a recent treatment of the subject, in Paul Janet's Theory 
of Morals, the chapter on the universality of moral principles 
and moral progress. 

M The world advances, and in time outgrows 
The laws that in our fathers' days were best ; 
And doubtless after us, some purer scheme 
Will be shaped out by wiser men than we, 
Made wiser by the steady growth of truth." 

Lowell. 

Civilization grows largely in proportion to the willingness and 
ability of men to cooperate ; and cooperation demands great 
moral qualities which we cannot begin too soon to cultivate. 

" All are needed by each one : 
Nothing is fair or good alone." 

" The enthusiasm of humanity " is the name happily given by 
Professor I. R. Seeley to the highest type of desire to work for 
others. Mr. Leslie Stephen has worked out the conception of 
society as a moral organism in his Science of 'Ethics ; the idea 
of " social tissue " is fully developed by him. He concludes, 
however, " But it is happy for the world that moral progress 
has not to wait till an unimpeachable system of ethics has been 



MORAL PROGRESS. 143 

elaborated." Progressive Morality, by T. Fowler, and Moral 
Order and Progress, by S. Alexander, contain able discussions of 
the advance of morality. 

The moral progress of most importance to each one of us is 
indicated in Wordsworth's " Happy Warrior " : — 

" Who not content that former worth stand fast, 
Looks forward, persevering to the last, 
From well to better, daily self-surpast ; M 

in Dr. Holmes's " Chambered Nautilus," and in D. A. Wasson's 
« Ideals." 



CHAPTEE XV. 
LIFE ACCORDING TO THE GOLDEN RULE. 

Every art has its ideal, the standard of perfection, 
toward which the efforts of all who practise it are more 
or less consciously directed. In human conduct, the 
greatest of all arts for the mass of mankind, this ideal 
would be, theoretically, the realization in one life of all 
the virtues that we can name. But they are so many, 
and human beings have such different natural disposi- 
tions, temperaments, and talents that, practically, we 
do not expect any person, even the best, to be " a model 
of all the virtues : " such a phrase is ironical on the 
face of it. But there is one rule for conduct, observ- 
ance of which is universally allowed to be a mark of 
every thoroughly good person. It is the precept known 
to us all as the Golden Eule : Do unto others as you 
would that they should do unto you. This is so 
extremely important a rule of conduct to bear in mind 
constantly and to obey every hour, that we shall do 
well to consider it carefully. 

The beginning of morality, we have seen, is obedi- 
ence to the law of life together, and this means self- 
control, the willingness to do our part, — no less, — 
and to take our share, — no more. But the greatest 
foe of the good life is the intense and irrational impulse 
almost every person has to assert himself, even to the 
loss or injury of others, to take more than his due share 
of the good things, and less than his share- of the work, 
the hardships and the sufferings of human life. The 
extreme point of this selfishness is murder and war, in 
which one takes away from others even life itself, the 



LIFE ACCORDING TO THE GOLDEN RULE. 145 

prime condition of every human good. If we briefly 
consider the history of the world down to modern 
times, we shall agree with Mr. John Fiske : " There 
can be little doubt that in respect to justice and kind- 
ness the advance of civilized man has been less marked 
than in respect of quick-wittedness. Now, this is be- 
cause the advancement of civilized man has been largely 
effected through fighting." The world is becoming 
more peaceful, we trust, and will advance hereafter 
more through peace than through war. But to check 
the extreme selfishness and passion which show them- 
selves in violence between persons, and in war between 
nations, to make peace — the condition of most of the 
virtues — between individuals and between countries 
possible and actual, some universal maxim of con- 
duct would seem to be desirable. This, obviously, 
should refer not so much to any special action, as kill- 
ing or stealing, as to the general disposition out of 
which all our acts proceed. Such a rule, applying to 
so widespread an evil as selfishness, should inculcate 
a spirit fatal to greed and violence and cunning. To 
obtain general acceptance it should be plain, direct, and 
searching. It should spring out of the actual experi- 
ence of mankind in all times and countries, and justify 
itself at once to rational beings. 

Such a rule has been hit upon, as a matter of fact, all 
over the world, we may say, in every country where 
men have risen from the condition of savages. It is a 
simple deduction from the elementary notion of justice. 
If you are acting in a certain manner toward another 
person, is it right that he should treat you in the same 
spirit ? If you say that it would not be right, why 
would it not be right ? Is your own conduct toward 
him right ? Of course, we soon realize, when we have 
begun to reason about the matter, how difficult, if not 
actually impossible, it is for us "to see ourselves as 
others see us," and to judge our own acts, words, looks^ 



146 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

feelings, and thoughts, just as others do. In fact, a 
perfectly just judgment would have to take into account 
our thoughts and feelings as we ourselves alone can 
know them, as well as the expressions and words others 
see and hear. 

Recognizing this common difficulty of passing right 
judgment on others and on ourselves, the immeasurable 
experience of mankind has yet shown that the spirit 
in which we act is the main matter. If we have 
acted, if others have acted, in a spirit of sympathy ; if 
in the conduct of each there is an effort to imagine how 
his action would appear to himself if he were the other 
person, and to shape his conduct so as to approve it to 
himself, standing in the other man's place, — then we 
have gotten over the main evil in our conduct, we have 
risen, to a degree, out of self, and judged and acted im- 
partially. Thus doing, we are at least acting according 
to a rule, not according to a blind and foolish determi- 
nation to have our own way and get all we can, every- 
where and always. The result, shortly stated, of mil- 
lions upon millions of special experiences of men in 
social life is that the Golden Rule is the best attainable 
working rule of life : Put yourself in his place ; do 
as you would be done by. This means : Try to see 
things as they are, not simply as they first appear to 
yourself, for you may be, you must be, hindered from 
seeing them completely by your personal interests or 
limitations. It means : Try, as far as you may, to see 
your own conduct from the outside, as well as from the 
inside. 

This is the method of science. In every other di- 
rection we endeavor to see as all see, to know as all 
know, to find what is fact to everybody and what must 
be law for all, ourselves as well as others. Our con- 
duct will be rational, and so right, when we conform it 
to the universal laws of morals. Practically, the easi- 
est way for us so to conform it is to work according to 



LIFE ACCORDING TO THE GOLDEN RULE. 147 

this Golden Rule. The act that you are about to do, 
would you like to have it done to yourself ? The words 
that are on your tongue to speak, would you like to 
have them spoken to yourself ? These are very search- 
ing questions ! Beyond a doubt, if we paused to put 
them to ourselves and acted in accordance with the 
negative answer which we should often give, the world 
would be very much happier, very much better than it 
is. For it is one of the simplest facts of human nature 
that men naturally do as they are done by : wrong 
breeds wrong, and injuries are returned with interest, 
and so multiplied indefinitely. But if we are treated 
justly by others, we at least incline to treat them justly. 
Kindness, truthfulness, all the virtues, propagate them- 
selves in this way. 

That men, then, should do rightly to others and be 
treated rightly in return, it is chiefly necessary that 
they should bear these others in mind and act with 
some view to their welfare. The most direct way to 
this end is to imagine ourselves in others' places, and 
then act accordingly. So all the greatest teachers of 
morals the world has seen are unanimous in laying 
down the Golden Rule in one form or another. Let 
us hear what some of them say. The Buddhist Dham- 
mapada, or Path to Virtue, declares : In all this world 
evil is overcome only with good. The Jewish Book 
of Leviticus says : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself. Hillel, the famous rabbi, commanded : " What 
thou hatest thyself, that do not thou to another : that is 
the whole of the law." Confucius, the great moral 
teacher of China, thus expanded the rule : " That which 
you hate in superiors, do not practise in your conduct 
toward inferiors ; that which you dislike in inferiors, 
do not practise toward superiors ; that which you hate 
in those before you, do not exhibit to those behind you ; 
that which you hate in those behind you, do not mani- 
fest to those before you ; that which you hate in those 



148 THE LAWS OF DAILY CONDUCT. 

on your right do not manifest to those on your left ; 
that which you hate in those on your left, do not mani- 
fest to those on your right. This is the doctrine of 
measuring others by ourselves." Briefer is the an- 
swer which Confucius gave to one who asked him, " Is 
there one word which may serve as a rule of practice 
for all one's life ? " " Is not Reciprocity such a word ? " 
he replied ; " what you wish done to yourself, do to 
others." To the same effect spoke Isocrates the Greek 
orator, and Thales the Greek philosopher. So, in the 
most emphatic way, Jesus of Nazareth commanded: 
All things, therefore, whatsoever ye would that 
men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto 
them. 

The Golden Eule must not be understood as taking 
the place of the whole moral code. It inculcates the 
spirit in which we should act. Justice and truth and 
kindness, — these are the virtues we wish men to show 
to ourselves : they are the very virtues, then, that we 
should exhibit to them. The Golden Eule cannot in- 
form us precisely what is just, or true, or kind, in a 
particular instance ; but it does remind us to act accord- 
ing to the knowledge we have of the just and the true, 
in a kindly manner. Living in obedience to this Eule, 
we should cultivate in ourselves the intellectual power 
of imagination and the capacity of sympathy. " The 
better we can imagine objects and relations not present 
to sense, the more readily we can sympathize with other 
people. Half the cruelty in the world is the direct re- 
sult of stupid incapacity to put one's self in the other 
man's place." 

No one has a right to ask that we set aside justice in 
his favor, or that we shall tell lies to shield him from 
suffering or punishment. But the Golden Eule de- 
mands that justice be done in a spirit of kindness, and 
that the truth be spoken in love. We have only to put 
it into practice to convince ourselves how excellent a 



LIFE ACCORDING TO THE GOLDEN RULE. 149 

rule it is. At home, did parents and children, husband 
and wife, brother and sister, mistress and maid, en- 
deavor to appreciate each other's duties, difficulties, 
burdens, and trials, and act in real sympathy ; did they 
enter into each other's feelings and thoughts, to help, 
to cheer, to bless and love : what a right, true, and 
happy home that would be ! If in the school-room the 
teacher is anxious to help the scholars, and the scholars 
to help the teacher, how that school would prosper in 
the giving and the getting of knowledge ! In the rela- 
tions of employer and employee, of buyer and seller, in 
our common social intercourse, in our use of power and 
property, of knowledge and talent and skill, in every 
place and in every time of human " life together," we 
have only to do as we would be done by, to realize the 
wisdom of those who gave the rule and the happiness 
of those who have obeyed it. 

When we do wrong to others as we think they have 
done to us, considering ourselves most of all, we live 
under an iron law of selfishness. When Ave only refrain 
from doing what we should not wish to have done to 
ourselves, this may be called living under a silver rule. 
But the one rule of conduct which deserves to be called 
Golden says, Whatsoever ye would that men should 
do unto you, even so do ye unto them ! 



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